Allegations of exploitation and abuse have emerged at one of the biggest fashion brands in the US. Former CEO Mike Jeffr | dG1fYTFCOWoyS3lFWTA
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 I was escorted to the front doors of the bedroom.
00:05 When I entered that room, the door was closed behind me.
00:08 My feeling of being in that room was an animal.
00:11 I was not a human to any of these people.
00:15 I was a body.
00:18 I was being presented to someone
00:22 to do what they wanted with.
00:28 What happened to me changed my life,
00:32 and not for the better.
00:34 My name's Rihanna. I'm a journalist with the BBC
00:51 and I've been carrying out some research about the experiences of models.
00:55 For almost three years, I've been investigating a dark secret
00:59 in the US fashion industry.
01:01 They did recruit men, and they certainly did have sex with them.
01:06 They could destroy you if they wanted to. We all knew that.
01:10 At the heart of this secret was one man,
01:13 the man behind one of the biggest fashion brands in the world.
01:17 It's probably the darkest experience I've ever dealt with.
01:23 He was viewed as a form of genius.
01:25 The modern-day founder of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries.
01:30 The head of a very powerful, very wealthy organisation.
01:34 My investigation has taken me across the US.
01:38 By the time the men would have arrived, where were they going to go?
01:42 I mean, how easy could it have been to have left?
01:44 Speaking to men who say they were exploited and abused.
01:48 Yes? Are we rolling? Take one.
01:51 I think he's a deviant, I think he's a predator.
01:54 I don't think that's what the public has seen.
01:56 I was overwhelmed. I mean, I've never seen anything like this.
01:59 What I'd like to talk about is being lied to, tricked,
02:03 and traded like a commodity.
02:05 Hey! Ho-ho!
02:07 Me Too has empowered women to speak out about sexual abuse.
02:11 Oh, no! What a girl!
02:15 Now these men say they want to be heard too.
02:19 I think it's rarely considered that men could be a victim of anything.
02:24 They face a double stigma,
02:26 and I don't think that men have quite had their Me Too movement.
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