On November 21, 2023, model Minerva Portillo filed a lawsuit against fashion photographer Terry Richardson and his former modeling agency, Trump Model Management. She had already told this story Rowing Spain in 2017: the events allegedly occurred in May 2004, when she was 22 years old, in front of other employees of the photographer.
Model Minerva Portillo accuses photographer Terry Richardon of sexual assault
According to the model, the photographer sexually assaulted her during a photo shoot. As he photographed her topless, he allegedly began posing with her, touching her breasts and pressing his penis against her. He allegedly even stuck his penis in her mouth while she repeated “no,” while her employees took photos of her. In addition to this sexual violence (which in the French legal context would rather be defined as rape), Terry Richardson reported (“Terry Richardson: Terryworld” in the fall of 2004), published (in the book Kiboshin 2006) and sold photos of the incident without Minerva Portillo’s consent, reports the New York Times.
In an interview with the main American newspaper, founder and director of the modeling defense association Model Alliance, Sara Ziff welcomed this appeal to justice against this photographer who has been spreading rumors of sexual violence for years:
“When Richardson’s behavior made headlines, some people focused on his pornographic aesthetic. But I believe the problem is not the images of him, but the way he and his collaborators treated young women and girls to create these images. »
Highly popular in the early 2000s, the photographer’s hypersexualized aesthetic began to fall out of fashion in the mid-2010s, particularly due to rumors of sexual assault. Although several media outlets have decided to stop working with him on #MeToo, this complaint becomes the first to reach federal court.
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
