Models allege they were sexually assaulted by French fashion titan Gerald Marie: “He tried to rape me”

A former titan of the style industry is going through various accusations of sexual assault. Fifteen women have gone to the French authorities with allegations of sexual assault towards Gerald Marie, who for many years was a single of the most effective guys in the globe of modeling.

Two of his accusers, Laurie Marsden and Lisa Brinkworth, shared their stories with CBS News.

“I started out in New York Town, and then I went to Milan, which is form of the trajectory that a whole lot of designs go through,” Laurie Marsden said. “And then my Milanese agency claimed, ‘Why never you try Paris?'”

Marsden was a best product in the 1980s. She arrived in Paris at the age of 19. Her agent was Marie, who at the time was 1 of the most highly effective adult males in the modeling industry. Marsden promises Marie explained to her she’d be a star. Nevertheless, at a household bash, he attacked her, Marsden stated.

“He jumped on major of me and he experienced me pinned down,” Marsden mentioned. “And he tried to rape me. I lastly acquired out from beneath him, and then I fled.”

“There was no query that he was there for sex,” Marsden mentioned when requested regardless of whether she considered it was an tried rape. “And the actuality that he was not halting, and the truth that he was pulling my outfits off, there arrived a second the place I mentioned to myself, ‘You are heading to be raped.'”

Marsden says she did not go to the police at the time due to the fact she imagined she wouldn’t be taken very seriously.

The accusations from the 15 women of all ages had been brought to French authorities in September of 2021. The alleged assaults occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.

An additional one particular of Marie’s alleged victims is Lisa Brinkworth. In 1998, Brinkworth was an undercover journalist functioning on a documentary about the abuse of youthful types. She was posing as a design herself. She suggests she encountered Marie at a nightclub with other modeling executives.

“Gerald Marie was upcoming to me, and he was getting extremely, pretty insistent that we would sleep with each other,” Brinkworth explained. “And then, all of a sudden, without having any warning, he straddled me and pinned me at the back again of my chair, and type of simulated sex. And this went on for some time. I was certainly terrified I was heading to be raped. And I was shouting, ‘No, no.’ Then eventually he acquired off me.”

Brinkworth suggests she recorded a video clip account quickly following the assault, which was received by “60 Minutes Australia.”

“It was just definitely horrific,” she said in the video clip.

Nonetheless, she suggests she was prevented from heading to the authorities mainly because it could have impacted the documentary.

“Just after supper, Gerald Marie features to have a consume at his dwelling. In some cases he just says that they will need to talk about the occupation, and ultimately, when they bought there, you know, he assaults them,” Anne-Claire Le Jeune, a French legal professional symbolizing the 15 alleged victims, told CBS Information in Paris, the world’s fashion money, in which Marie the moment sat at the pinnacle of the modeling business.

Le Jeune states most of the alleged assaults occurred outdoors the French statute of limitations, way too extended ago for Marie to be billed. Marie is now retired.

“The modeling business results in a best storm for predators,” Marsden said. “You have incredibly savvy older gentlemen, and then you have incredibly youthful ladies — 15, 16, 17 decades outdated — who are thrown alongside one another.”

“It is totally unregulated,” Brinkworth said. “Manner actually thrives on the abuse of ladies. I suggest, they go hand in hand.”

Marie, who is now in his 70s, has under no circumstances been charged with a criminal offense.

“We are easily attacked,” he stated in a 1999 job interview, when requested about some of the accusations.

His lawyer advised CBS Information in a assertion that Marie “firmly objects to the defamatory and phony allegations manufactured against him” and is “withholding his statements for the justice program.”