Terry Richardson Accused of Sexual Assault in New Lawsuit
The once-famous fashion photographer, long accused of misconduct with models, faces legal action.
The fashion photographer Terry Richardson, who has largely retreated from the public eye, is being accused of sexual assaultCredit...Lucas Jackson/Reuters
By
Jessica Testa
Nov. 22, 2023, 6:52 p.m. ET
A model filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the photographer Terry Richardson, accusing him of sexually assaulting her during a photo shoot. According to the lawsuit, he then exhibited, published and sold photos from the incident without her consent.
The model, Minerva Portillo, lives and works in Spain today, but brought the lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which has provided victims a one-year window to file civil lawsuits even if the statutes of limitations in their cases had run out.
That window opened last November and closes this week.
Mr. Richardson, once a top fashion photographer who shot for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and GQ, was known for his style of shooting models against a white background with a direct flash. His work was often sexually charged, from his explicit art books to his portraits of half-dressed celebrities for glossy magazines. His association with those magazines, the brands he shot campaigns for and the fame of his subjects — including President Obama
in 2007 — helped legitimize him.
But starting in 2014, a number of institutions he had worked for began
distancing themselves from Mr. Richardson,
including T: The New York Times Style Magazine. The shift followed a wave of accusations of inappropriate behavior and coercion of models. During the #MeToo movement in 2017,
more companies followed, and Mr. Richardson largely retreated from the public eye.
Now, for the first time since allegations
began circulating in 2010, the photographer may have to fight an accuser in federal court.
Mr. Richardson did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Ms. Portillo, who first told her story in November 2017 to
Spanish Vogue, had been modeling in Europe since she was 14, but moved to New York for work in 2004, at age 22. “She was really on her way, in the late ’90s and early 2000s, to becoming a top supermodel,” said Ms. Portillo’s lawyer, Carolin Guentert of Sanford Heisler Sharp.
According to Ms. Portillo, the first time she met Mr. Richardson, for an introductory meeting (or “go see,” in industry speak), the photographer was dressed only in a robe. This disturbed Ms. Portillo, but she was told by her agency, Trump Model Management, “that given Mr. Richardson’s prominence and influence in the industry, Ms. Portillo should overlook his behavior,” according to her civil complaint. (Trump Model Management, the agency founded by former President Donald J. Trump as T Models in 1999 and closed in 2017, was also named as a defendant in Ms. Portillo’s lawsuit.)
Image
The model Minerva Portillo brought a lawsuit against Mr. Richardson under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.Credit...Atilano Garcia/Sopa Images, via Sipa Usa, via Reuters,
In May 2004, she was booked for a shoot with Mr. Richardson at his studio, where Ms. Portillo was given a beverage upon arrival on set that she believed to be spiked with “an intoxicating or narcotic substance,” her lawsuit said, making her feel “dizzy, disoriented, and not fully in control of her body.”
While Mr. Richardson was photographing Ms. Portillo topless, the model contends that the photographer began posing with her, touching her breasts and pressing his exposed penis up against her body; eventually Mr. Richardson “forcibly inserted his penis into her mouth, and ordered her to perform oral sex on him,” while she repeatedly said “no.” According to Ms. Portillo, the alleged assault was photographed by Mr. Richardson’s employees.
Ms. Portillo returned the next day; while she was “deeply upset about the assault,” according to the lawsuit, she was also “fearful that she would lose her job with Trump Model Management, professional opportunities, or even the agency’s support of her visa if she rejected the job.” On the second day, according to the lawsuit, Mr. Richardson once again “commanded her to perform oral sex on him,” while his employees took photographs, this time while they rode together in a van.
The experience traumatized her, according to the lawsuit, and Ms. Portillo returned to Spain about a week later.
That fall, some of the photographs of Ms. Portillo were included in an exhibition titled “Terry Richardson: Terryworld,” and in 2006 were published in a book, “Kibosh,” despite a 2005 cease-and-desist letter from Ms. Portillo, who claimed she was dropped by a Spanish modeling agency because of the explicit images.
Ms. Portillo said she did not consent to the distribution or sale of Mr. Richardson’s photos. She had signed an undated release at his studio after the first photo shoot, but given her state of mind and that English wasn’t her first language, “did not know what she was signing,” according to the lawsuit. (Modeling agencies typically handle such paperwork.)
“Enduring sexual assault is one of the worst things that could have possibly happened to her, but then to have images of it captured forever and circulated on the internet and sold for profit — it just really altered the trajectory of her career and her life,” said her lawyer, Ms. Guentert.
In 2005, two lawsuits were filed against Mr. Richardson in California with similar allegations regarding image permissions; in
both complaints, the models said they had not signed standard releases and were surprised to see their seminude photographs published by Mr. Richardson — both lawsuits were settled. In a
2014 profile of Mr. Richardson, New York magazine reported that “as many as nine people” shown in “Terryworld” had also threatened lawsuits.
Ms. Portillo’s story also echoes 2017 allegations from at least two other women — both former models who said they were forced to perform oral sex on Mr. Richardson in the 2000s — and who later told
The Daily News that after coming forward, they were contacted for interviews by New York Police Department detectives.
Still, no criminal charges were filed then against Mr. Richardson, who
in 2014 called the allegations rumors and lies — part of an “emotionally-charged witch hunt.”
Two years prior, in 2012, a model named Sara Ziff founded an advocacy organization called Model Alliance, inspired in part by models’ experiences with Mr. Richardson. The group supported New York’s Adult Survivors Act and
aims to pass further reform legislation directed at the fashion industry next year.
“When Richardson’s behavior first made headlines, some people focused on his p*rn aesthetic,” Ms. Ziff said. “But I believe the problem is not his imagery, it’s how he and his enablers treated young women and girls to create those images.”
