Carré Otis Video Interview Talks About Rape By Gérald Marie At 17
In legal documents submitted to the Tribunal Judiciaire in Paris Carré Oti and Jill Dodd, accused Gerald Marie of raping them when they were aged 17 and 20 respectively. Swedish model Ebba Karlsson says she was “traumatized” when he sexually assaulted her in 1990, according to The Sunday Times. Formal criminal proceedings against Marie, who is Linda Evangelista’s ex-husband, have yet to be launched, but the allegations have been submitted to a prosecutor.
John Casablancas, Patrick Demarchelier & Gérald Marie
“We still have perpetrators in the industry and it has to stop. I have daughters. I don’t want them to have to grow up and normalize any amount of sexual harassment or sexual assault in their lives,” Otis told the Times. “I would like to tell other victims and survivors that telling my story was pivotal to me. It was so important for me to find my voice and trail-blaze. It involved a lot of tears and processing and a lot of healing too.”
JILL SORENSEN Co-Founder of Knock Out Abuse
There are now at least 25 sexual misconduct allegations against our president DONALD TRUMP, ranging from unwanted advances and harassment to serious sexual assaults. More than half relate to models or pageant contestants. Trump denies that he has ever behaved in a predatory or inappropriate fashion with any women or girls.
Carré Otis has long been identified as one of the most recognizable faces in modeling, starring in notorious campaigns for Revlon, walking the runway for Donna Karan, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Max Mara, Ermanno Scervino, Todd Oldham. She has that undeniable beauty that can launch a thousand ships, but it is her resilience against the many hardships she has overcome throughout her life that makes her a pioneer and champion to victims who feel they have no power.
As a supermodel, Otis made the covers of many magazines. She’s worked with the most famous fashion photographers in the world, including Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Richard Avedon and Herb Ritts.
Before the popularity of the “Me Too” movement a decade earlier there was Carre Otis’ groundbreaking book “Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir” where she took the more difficult and unpopular step to expose the “normalized behavior” of rape and violence in the modeling world. “It is ironic to me that it is the victim of assault that suffers in shame” because the perpetrator is often protected through their wealth, social standing, and political connections. It was Otis that was the first to name names in her memoir at great risk to her safety. That step became an important stepping stone in the creation of The Leadership Council of the Model Alliance. “The modeling world is an unregulated industry, … it is a place where people exist with no consequence to their actions and that has got to change”.
In her book Beauty Disrupted: A Memoir, Otis unveils the business of beauty and its heavy toll by offering a striking testimony of her personal struggles with sense of self, love and spirituality. Now that she is a wife and mother of two she fiercely and publicly supports young women in and out of the modeling industry.
Otis began her modeling career at age 16. Discovered in San Francisco, John Casablancas signed her to Elite Model Management. In April 1986, while working for Elite in Paris, she was featured on the cover of French Elle, it was the first time she achieved fame.
It was the beginning of a long series of covers in the American and foreign editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, Mirabella, and Marie Claire. Otis starred in ads for Guess Jeans (1988), Calvin Klein Jeans (1991), the 1996 Pirelli calendar, Playboy Magazine (1990, 2000) and even appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition (2000).
In 2000, when Carre appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, she became one of the oldest models to do so, along with Christie Brinkley at 34 and Cheryl Tiegs at 42 remarkably featured in the 25th Anniversary edition (1989). After this, Otis began her recovery from anorexia nervosa. That led her to gain weight. She took it as an opportunity to work as a plus-size model, becoming the face of Marina Rinaldi and Mode Magazine editorials; in 2003, Otis embraced a new voice being the spokesperson for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. In addition to this role, she appeared regularly as a correspondent on Channel 4 News in San Francisco.
In her very revealing conversation with ChanceTV, you will be intrigued by her intelligence and knowledge of plant based medicine and indigenous traditions that are applicable to all aspects of life. “We should not be decriminalizing nature because at it’s heart, Mother Nature can heal spiritually and physically on so many levels”. Iboga, a rain-forest shrub from West Africa and its healing capabilities to fight drug addiction and PTSD, the woody roots of various African plants that can induce a comfortable and safe dream like state to enhance personal growth and meditation.
In August 2003, Otis modeled for a PETA ad campaign helping to promote vegetarianism and animal rights. In 2005, she was the face of the Breil jewelry line.
The Perfect Guess Jeans
Otis is a firm believer in getting away from the external stimulants of everyday life and pulling from the various traditions of Buddhism and the cultures of Nepal and Africa. “Working with different psychedelics and indigenous traditions from Tibet and Dharma Buddhist medicine, we must honor the knowledge of the elders and we must respect their traditions by being well trained to deliver the true essence of their healing capabilities”.
In her book “Beauty, Disrupted” (2011) she confides about her difficult childhood, particularly because of her dyslexia never officially being diagnosed. She detailed how she was raped repeatedly at age 17.
Shortly after arriving in Paris to be a new face model she was assaulted by her agent who happened to be the head of Elite Paris as well: Gerald Marie. At the time he was in his 40s and engaged to Supermodel Linda Evangelista. The assaults occurred whenever Evangelista was traveling. In 1991, Carré Otis was shot in her shoulder when a .357 Magnum went off when she dropped her purse on a table. The gun was hidden in her purse without her knowledge by her first husband.
She tells the story of her long-time battle with bulimia and how she overcame it. Her career in the high fashion industry only aggravated her illness. She was constantly told that she was fat. (This was happening in the 80s — a time when, we are often told, the body type the fashion industry glorified was “healthier” and fuller-figured than today). She started abusing cocaine. Coke was “the secret to model weight management.”
Carré almost died from heroin overdose. Doctors had to cauterize three holes in her heart, a heart weakened by years of drug and nutritional abuse. Carré also suffered from heart seizures caused by lack of protein in her diet. Thankfully, she is now a vegetarian, a Buddhist & in perfect health.
Let’s talk FAKING IT. “The orgasm stuff is an infinitely more interesting discussion for me, too. My gosh, how many women do I know either haven’t experienced an orgasm or faked it most of the time and can only get off by getting themselves off? It deserves to have a discussion today. For a woman to make love and have an orgasm, you have to be safe. You’ve got to let go of your body and that can be terrifying. For me, there was so much disconnect between abuse but then also having to create this persona. That’s why for me celibacy was so important. I really needed to get perspective on who I was. I knew how to have an orgasm on my own but I’d never had one with a man.”
So you actually faked it every time with your first husband?
“Yes. I faked it really well, like most good girls. To make them feel good. There’s some sense of fake power in that performance. You don’t have to experience vulnerability, but really there is no power — it’s empty.”
Carré was celibate for five years, yes FIVE years. “What was amazing to me during my celibacy was how uncomfortable it made people. I kept getting this comment, ‘But you’re in your prime.” I was like, “So what? I need to define myself first or what? Continue my life having meaningless sex with strangers?”
Kimora Lee Simmons asked me if I had cobwebs on my coochi. It was so bizarre for people. It was then amazing to walk through the doors of intimacy with my now husband, Matthew Sutton. It was incredible; it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, to go back into a sexual relationship, because I knew I would never fake an orgasm again.
Much more than the beautiful and statuesque model we came to love from magazine and billboards, there is an incredible marriage to Matthew Sutton and two amazing daughters. In her discussion with ChanceTV, she reveals the life changing request by the legendary Herb Ritts, as well her understanding of Buddhism at age 17 that provided her with a greater sense of her purpose on this planet. She met her second husband an environmental scientist, while hiking in May 2005 and married him that December. They have two beautiful daughters together: Jade Yeshe Sutton and Kaya Elizabeth Drolma Sutton.
Today Otis is a size 12, having gained weight (approx. 30 lbs.) she works actively as a plus-sized fashion model. Although, Carré is completely healthy and in excellent shape, the modelling world still classifies her as “Plus.” She has five tattoos, five tokens of her spirituality: a rose and a Japanese peace sign on her right ankle; a Tibetan symbol on her left ankle; an angel on her back; and a Native American Thunderbird on her wrist.
She is on the advisory board of The Model Alliance. That is a nonprofit that is dedicated to improving the labor conditions and rights of models. She is also an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association.
Carre told the Francisco Chronicle: ‘It’s a very sketchy industry, with grown-up problems enveloping minors. Any other industry would have child labor laws. How did that slip? People need to take responsibility for the damage done outside the industry – women and girls with eating disorders and dissatisfaction with their body image.”
Otis had even written extensively about it in her book ‘Beauty Disrupted‘ in 2011. In the book, she described how Marie — then engaged to supermodel Linda Evangelista — RAPED her while she was renting a room in his Paris home. Gerard Marie was such a gentleman that he conducted his rapes of Carre in his young daughter’s room, which Carrie was renting. They often doing cocaine together. She was told it was ‘the secret to model weight management,’ by Marie.
Buy Carre Otis’s Book “Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir“
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With her beautiful green cat eyes, you will see her light up as she shares her upcoming endeavors, such as The Bare Momma Project, and another soon to be best selling book. So get ready to be captivated by this forward thinking visionary’s intellect, passion and dedication to making the world a better place for ALL living things.
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