Ex-models publicize assault allegations against former elite model boss Grald Marie

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Gerald Marie, former director of Elite Europe, pictured in 2001. Getty Images.

Years after claiming former Elite executive Grald Marie sexually assaulted them, women are speaking out in a French probe into the allegations.

French investigators last week collected testimonies from several women who say they have been raped or sexually abused by Marie, the former European manager of the Elite modeling agency. More than 5 others should be questioned in the coming week, reports Agence France-Presse, citing sources close to the investigation.

The allegedly speaking publicly of Maries assault victims include Swedish model Ebba Karlsson and former BBC journalist Lisa Brinkworth.

Kingmaker in the modeling industry in the 1990s, the Maries agency helped launch the careers of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista (to whom he was previously married).

Brinkworth was posing as a model for an investigative report in 1998 when Marie assaulted her at a Milan nightclub, she says. After the report aired in 1999, Elite sued the BBC for libel. He has been untouchable for too, too long, Brinkworth told AFP.

The investigation, opened in 2020, is being carried out by the French police’s child protection unit, as some of the alleged incidents include assaults on minors.

Marie is also being sued in New York City, where Wild Orchid model and actress Carr Sutton (formerly known as Carr Otis) filed a lawsuit against him and other Elite executives in August. In the lawsuit, Sutton claims she was repeatedly raped by Marie, was given cocaine for weight loss, and was trafficked with other men when she was 17. years.

Sutton is also cooperating with the French investigation and is due to give a press conference in Paris on Tuesday.

Marie dismisses the false and defamatory allegations with dismay, her lawyer said in an email statement. He will refrain from any declarations until he addresses the competent authorities.

Learn more:

Carr Sutton sues former elite model director

The former model has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against Grald Marie and Trudi Tapscott, claiming she suffered sexual abuse and neglect while working as a teenage model in Paris.

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