Model boss in 'rape' shock
Ex-catwalkers: Agency big assaulted us
A former head of the Elite Model Management agency — who was once married to supermodel Linda Evangelista — has been accused of raping women in the 1980s and ’90s, including model/actress Carré Otis when she was just 17 years old, according to a report on Sunday.
Gérald Marie, who was president of the European arm of the worldrenowned modeling agency for 25 years, was formally accused in legal documents submitted to a Paris prosecutor on behalf of two women, including Otis, the ex-wife of the actor Mickey Rourke, according to the report by The Sunday Times of London.
The legal papers were filed by the same lawyer who is representing women who have alleged that they were attacked by Jean-Luc Brunel, the Karin Models agency boss linked to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the newspaper reported. Brunel has denied the allegations.
No criminal proceedings have been launched, and the prosecutor could choose not to begin a full investigation into the complaints lodged with the Judicial Tribunal, according to the paper.
Marie, 70, now chair of the Oui Management modeling agency, denied the claims.
“It would not be appropriate for me to comment at this time on the allegations of historic wrongdoing being made against me, other than to make it clear that I categorically deny them,” he told the paper.
Elite, which is one of the world’s largest modeling agencies, has represented such catwalk superstars as Cindy Crawford, Gisele Bündchen, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell.
Former model Jill Dodd, now 60 — who joined Otis in the legal filing — alleges in the document that Marie raped her when she was 20 after she moved to France to join the agency he worked for in 1980, Paris Planning, the report said.
Meanwhile, Lisa Brinkworth, a journalist, also accused Marie of sexually assaulting her while she worked undercover as a model for a 1998 BBC exposé on the industry, according to the newspaper.
And Ebba Karlsson, a Swedish former model now living in North Carolina, says she was “traumatized” after being sexually assaulted by Marie while he was with Elite in 1990, the paper reported.
“Today this girl is claiming her victory. She is claiming her victory of overcoming sexual assault and rape and closing that door behind her,” Karlsson, 51, wrote on Instagram Sunday.
Otis, 51, alleges Marie raped her in Paris while she was starting the career that would take her on to star in campaigns for Calvin Klein and Guess Jeans as well as the 1989 film “Wild Orchid,” co-starring Rourke.
Marie would have been engaged to Evangelista at the time of the alleged assault. The two married in 1987 and divorced in 1993.
Otis had hinted about the upcoming Sunday Times exposé in an Instagram post late Saturday.
“I have worked diligently with several brave souls over the past months to bring truth and justice forth. It has taken courage and hand holding,” she wrote, sending “gratitude to my sisters that have found their lion hearts, their warrior legs, and stood with me behind the scenes fighting a very dark force.”
She told the newspaper that especially as a mother of two girls, ages 12 and 13, she refused to stay silent about “intolerable acts by men in power who seem to be able to act in all impunity.”
“We still have perpetrators in the industry, and it has to stop. I have daughters. I don’t want them to have to grow up and normalize any amount of sexual harassment or sexual assault in their lives,” she said.
“I would like to tell other victims and survivors that telling my story was pivotal to me. It was so important for me to find my voice and trailblaze. It involved a lot of tears and processing and a lot of healing, too.”