Former models recount unsafe assignments, sexual pressure and exploitation while working abroad.
“My friend called and asked if I remembered a man named Jeff. He was looking for someone to give him a massage.”
Kristína had met Jeff only once before, at an agency party a few months earlier. A friend who worked as a modelling agent had invited her to meet wealthy, influential men who moved in New York’s social circles. In the modelling industry, such gatherings were an accepted way to make connections — and find work.
“It must have been around 2003,” Kristína, whose real name was altered in the story to safeguard her identity, recalls.
She had moved to the United States from Slovakia five years earlier and, while working her way through university, had spent several years attending events like these.
