Popular international supermodel Karen Elson who has been at the top of the industry for decades has opened up on how she survived s3xual harassment as a 16-year-old trying to make it in Paris, the capital of France.
She said that a model scout took her to a nightclub after long days on the Métro trekking to castings that came to nothing, and evenings alone in a run-down apartment, she was excited to be out having fun.
‘The music was good and the scout, to whom her agent had introduced her, kept the drinks coming.
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She started to feel tipsy. A friend of the scout’s arrived, and the pair started massaging her shoulders, making sexual suggestions. “I was 16 and I’d never kissed a boy,” she recalls. “It was my first experience of sexual – well, s3xual anything, and this was s3xual harassment. They both had their hands on me.”
She told them she wanted to go home, and left to find a taxi, but they followed her into it, kissing her neck on the back seat. When they reached her street, she jumped out, slammed the taxi door and ran inside. The next day she told another model what had happened, and the scout found out. “His reaction was to corner me in the model agency and say: ‘I’ll f*cking get you kicked out of Paris if you ever fucking say anything ever again.’”
