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Fashion's King of Sleaze: The squalid truth about the photographer venerated by A-list stars and behind Miley Cyrus's X-rated makeover
By
Guy Adams
The girl in the photographs is 20, which at least makes things legal.
But the latest collection of portraits by Terry Richardson — which have already clocked up hundreds of thousands of page views on the internet — are anything but decent.
Published last weekend on the hip fashion photographer’s personal website, these 22 highly explicit images show the pop star Miley Cyrus parading around an unfurnished New York studio in various states of near-p*rn*gr*ph*c undress.
Terry Richardson owes both global celebrity, and considerable wealth, to a long-standing reputation as fashion's raunchiest photographer (pictured with Rihanna)
In one of the sets, Richardson persuades the once squeaky-clean singer to perform a sordid-looking sex act on an ice cream cone.
In another, he talks Cyrus, who is still too young to buy a drink legally in her native U.S., into holding an empty beer can suggestively in front of her groin while sticking her tongue out.
More images from the late-night photo-shoot show the former Disney queen smoking what appears to be a joint of cannabis, standing topless in a pair of see-through tights, and pulling a tiny red leotard upwards, so that it exposes most of her crotch.
Those are just the pictures which can be described in a family newspaper.
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As for the rest — let’s just call them top-shelf stuff. A world away from the wholesome children’s TV series Hannah Montana, in which Cyrus — daughter of the Christian country singer Billy Ray — achieved fame, at the tender age of 12.
Yet this tawdry objectification of an impressionable young woman is very much par for the course for the man behind the lens.
You can see Terry Richardson — whose sexual adventures are feted by peers in the fashion industry yet who is accused by some of sexual deviance — lurking in the background of the most explicit images from Cyrus’s headline-grabbing photo-shoot.
There he is, reflected in a dirty mirror, wearing his ‘trademark’ handlebar moustache and thick-rimmed spectacles, egging on the scantily-clad singer as she thrusts her near-naked torso towards his camera.
Explicit: Miley Cyrus in her video directed by Terry Richardson - a world away from the wholesome children's TV series Hannah Montana, in which Cyrus achieved fame, at the tender age of 12
And there he is, standing next to a half-naked Cyrus with his thumbs up, in the ‘signature’ pose that he executes with almost all of the subjects he photographs naked.
In both images, Richardson’s eyebrows are raised, enthusiastically. And why not: for this 48-year-old’s career, which has spanned more than 20 years, has been built on his ability to persuade much younger women to disrobe — and worse — in front of his camera.
Indeed, he owes both global celebrity, and considerable wealth, to a long-standing reputation as fashion’s raunchiest photographer.
Since his ‘breakthrough’, a famous Nineties photo-shoot for British designer Katharine Hamnett in which a young model sat, legs akimbo, to reveal her pubic hair, he has become the ‘go-to guy’ for brands seeking to adopt what marketeers call an ‘edgy’ image.
They appear to like him because of his obsession with naturalistic, grungy images of pornified women, rather than in spite of it.
‘Richardson took 1970s p*rn aesthetic and made it fashion chic,’ is how the preface to one of his books describes his career.
‘Pop stars, supermodels, transsexuals, hillbillies, friends, pets and celebrities all do for his lens what they’ll do for no other.’
Recent years have seen the American photographer cash in on this lucrative niche by shooting suggestive billboards for such High Street names as Levis, Diesel, Nike, American Apparel, and Mango.
Particularly close friends are said to include Kate Moss, whose wedding he photographed
They’ve also seen him produce racy magazine adverts for a swathe of high-end couture labels, including Gucci, Miu Miu and Jimmy Choo.
Thanks to his work for the world’s glossiest magazines — he shot Barack Obama for Vibe magazine in 2007 and Oprah Winfrey for Harper’s Bazaar in 2012 — he is also on first-name terms with a host of celebrities, as well as everyone who is anyone in the world of fashion.
Particularly close friends are said to include Kate Moss, whose wedding he photographed (one of the few times he’s shot the British model with any clothes on), and Lady Gaga, for whom he produced a 2011 coffee table book that critics dubbed ‘outrageous,’ and ‘disturbing’ and compared with Madonna’s famously-explicit 1992 hardback, Sex.
They also include the designer Tom Ford, the film director Wes Anderson, actress Lindsay Lohan, socialite Paris Hilton, and scores of other public figures who have attended gallery exhibitions containing his most intimate self-portraits.
The images which have been shown in such exhibitions are even more controversial — and sleazy — than the ones that are used in Richardson’s advertisements or commercial work.
For, since the start of his career, this modish individual has been in the habit of taking photographs of what he calls the ‘spontaneous sex acts’ that occasionally take place when he invites young models into his studio.
Type Richardson’s name into Google and you will be greeted by a wide range of these photos, many of which are not even flagged by internet p*rn filters, on the apparent grounds that they represent ‘art’ rather than p*rn*gr*phy.
Dozens portray bondage and public group sex, often in extreme close up.
Many involve girls (and transvestites) who are tied up, crammed into suitcases, and otherwise degraded while — as an interviewer once put it — Richardson stands around naked, ‘grinning like a nerd let loose in p*rno heaven.’
In interviews, Richardson, a former heroin addict who was raised in Los Angeles, has explained how he persuades his subjects to take part.
‘My rule is that I’d never ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself,’ he has said.
‘At first, I’d just want to do a few nude shots, so I’d take off my clothes, too. I’d even give the camera to the model and get her to shoot me for a while.
Terry Richardson has photographed everyone from Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey to Madonna
'It’s about creating a vibe, getting people relaxed and excited. When that happens, you can do anything.’
Bizarrely, Richardson consistently denies that the explicit images which ensue from such occasions are p*rn*gr*ph*c.
‘p*rn kind of bums me out because there is so much sadness and pain in that world. So little joy or even pleasure.’
He has also said he doesn’t use p*rn or go to strip clubs as he doesn’t like to exploit people.
‘That’s not my bag. Everyone has fun on my shoots.’
The great and good of fashion seem to buy this rather spurious argument. In many ways, that’s hardly surprising. Indeed, it speaks volumes for the extent to which this most superficial of industries has lost touch with its moral compass.
Yet Richardson’s continued ability to make a living (this season he shot an accessories campaign for the couture label Valentino) seems nothing short of remarkable given the public scandal that erupted around him three years ago.
It began at Paris Fashion week in 2010, when Rie Rasmussen, a Danish former model and film-maker, confronted him during a party at a nightclub.
‘I told him [that] what you do is completely degrading to women, I hope you know you only f**k girls because you have a camera, lots of fashion contacts and get your pictures in Vogue,’ she told reporters afterwards.
‘He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures of them they will be ashamed of. They are too afraid to say no because their agency booked them on the job and are too young to stand up for themselves.
‘His “look” is girls who appear underage, abused, look like heroin addicts . . . I don’t understand how anyone works with him.’
The confrontation sparked endless headlines. And in the ensuing days and weeks a collection of young models — ‘concerned individuals’ who had worked for Richardson in the past — came forward, complaining that they had felt exploited by him.
The feminist website Jezebel, which led coverage of the controversy, claimed to have been contacted by dozens of models, bookers, agents, and stylists who had serious reservations about his working practices.
Among them was the model Coco Rocha, who said: ‘I’ve shot with [Richardson] but I didn’t feel comfortable and I won’t do it again.’
Most of the other complainants chose to remain anonymous. But one, New Yorker Jamie Peck, stuck her head above the parapet by describing her experience posing for Richardson at the age of 19, after meeting him at a party.
In her account, published on The Gloss, a fashion website, Peck alleged that on her second visit to Richardson’s studio, the photographer suddenly removed his clothes and asked her to take photographs of him naked.
Then he took her to a couch and — in full view of two assistants — asked her to engage in a sex act. She consented, while the assistants watched and took further photos.
‘This is where I zoom out on the situation. I can remember doing this stuff, but even at the time, it was sort of like watching someone else do it,’ wrote Peck, who at the time was less than half Richardson’s age.
‘The only explanation I can come up with is that he was so darn friendly and happy about it all, and his assistants were so stoked on it as well, that I didn’t want to be the killjoy in the room.’
Child of destiny
Miley’s birth name was Destiny Hope because her parents believed she would achieve great things
Peck’s payment for taking part in the shoot was supposed to have been a signed print of Richardson’s photographs of her, which eventually appeared in the fashion magazine Purple.
However, she never collected it, saying: ‘I felt so gross about the whole thing that I never went back.’
Richardson has never commented on Peck’s specific allegations.
However, in response to widespread criticism of his working practices in the weeks that followed the publication of her account, he did publish a short statement on his blog.
‘I’m really hurt by the recent and false allegations of insensitivity and misconduct,’ it read.
‘I feel fortunate to work with so many extraordinary people each and every day. I’ve always been considerate and respectful of the people I photograph and I view what I do as a real collaboration between myself and the people in front of the camera.’
In many ordinary industries, even the whiff of such a scandal would kill a career stone dead, regardless of such a denial. But fashion is, of course, a different world.
Indeed, Richardson has since thrown himself back into work, with huge success. In recent years, he has maintained a near-constant presence on the cover of fashion magazines.
His relationship with Miley Cyrus is, meanwhile, thought to have begun a few months ago, when he directed the now-infamous video for her recent single Wrecking Ball, in which she sits on top of a large concrete ball wearing nothing aside from a pair of steel-capped safety boots.
That video led Irish singer Sinead O’Connor to publish an open letter urging the young Ms Cyrus not to allow the music industry to ‘make a prostitute of her’.
Days later, Richardson’s latest set of photos of the singer were published.
The fact that they appeared on his blog — rather than in print — has led to some speculation that they were initially commissioned by a magazine, but rejected on the grounds that they were too explicit for publication.
Whatever their provenance, these images of yet another impressionable and quite possibly troubled young girl disrobing in front of Terry Richardson’s camera have surely helped prove Sinead O’Connor’s point.
I am sorry, but I am a feminist.
