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Model Ashley Graham Opens Up About Her Own #MeToo Moment as a Young Model


Another day, another #MeToo moment.

This morning on The View, the hosts and model Ashley Graham got into a discussion about fashion photographer Terry Richardson and the allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Graham revealed that as a young model she agreed to work with the acclaimed photographer, in spite of the rumors she’d heard about him. Like many aspiring models before her, she wanted to work with the “best of the best” and have those “images in your portfolio.” She says that her Richardson shoot was “normal enough,” but that she did have fears about becoming a victim as well and that he might ask her to remove her shirt.

While Graham may have been lucky that day, she was sadly not so on another set, shooting a big campaign when she was 17. She describes a truly awful experience for any woman, but especially a young one. Graham says a photographer’s assistant lured her away asking to talk with her and then pushed her into a closet: “He exposed himself and said, ‘Look at what you did to me all day long. Now, touch it.'” Insert shudder here. Thankfully, she was able to run out but says she feared that if people in the industry found out what happened that she would be the one labeled “difficult.”

Graham says that if she knew then what she knows now, that all these women would be standing up and saying “Me too,” she would have spoken out—loudly. “The movement is working,” she says. “And I really feel like there are women who are standing up and saying, ‘No. Me too. And I’m going to watch out for my sisters on set.'” View cohost Whoopi Goldberg adds that “it’s going to be much harder for people to get away with…people are watching.”

And that’s something we all hope for during this time of #TimesUp and #MeToo—that women (and men) feel increasingly empowered to speak out about what is happening to them or to someone around them in hopes of stopping the painful and toxic behavior that has been a norm for way too long.

You can watch Ashley’s full story below:

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