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After tweeting that Paul Marciano “shouldn’t be allowed to use his power in the industry to sexually and emotionally harass women”, Kate Upton has shared detailed allegations against the Guess designer.
In an interview with Time magazine, the model shared her account of Marciano touching her breasts and other parts of her body on a photoshoot, before turning on her when she rejected him. Her story is corroborated by photographer Yu Tsai.
“After the first day of shooting the Guess Lingerie campaign [on July 25, 2010], Paul Marciano said he wanted to meet with me,” Upton told Time.
“As soon as I walked in with photographer Yu Tsai, Paul came straight up to me, forcibly grabbed my breasts and started feeling them — playing with them actually.
“After I pushed him away, he said, ‘I’m making sure they’re real’. Despite doing everything I could physically do to avoid his touch throughout the meeting, he continued to touch me in a very dominating and aggressive way, grabbing my thighs, my arms to pull me closer, my shoulders to pull me closer, my neck, my breasts, and smelling me. He then told Yu Tsai to leave us alone.”
Upton explained that she worked on another Guess shoot a month later. She says Marciano called asking to see her hotel room, a request she denied multiple times.
“The next day, I learned that I had been fired from the shoot. Someone had called my agency to say I had gotten fat and would not be needed on set [that day],” Upton alleged.
“I was devastated, especially because at this point no one from Guess had even seen me.”
In order for her to continue working for Guess, the model says she and photographer Tsai came up with a plan so she would never have to be alone with Marciano.
“I had a final shoot [in May of 2011], and he was outwardly rude and degrading the entire time. He said I was ‘disgusting’ and started telling people how unprofessional I was by spreading rumors that I was drunk on set and partying every night, which of course I wasn’t,” Upton claimed.
“I was then told to leave because Paul had said, ‘Get that fat pig off my set.'”
She says as a result of this, she made the decision to turn down a Guess campaign in 2012 which would have been her biggest pay check yet from the company.
“Paul used his power to make me feel insecure and powerless, but I’m not going to let him intimidate me anymore,” she told the magazine.
“These men think they are untouchable, but times are changing.”
In response to the claims, Marciano said:
“I have never been alone with Kate Upton. I have never touched her inappropriately. Nor would I ever refer to a Guess model in such a derogatory manner.
“I fully support the #metoo movement. At the same time, I will not allow others to defame me and tarnish my reputation. I have pledged to Guess and its Board of Directors my full support and cooperation with a fair and impartial investigation.”
More to come.
