Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: I began reporting for The Bunny Trap way back in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty when I got an email from a group
Speaker 2: of glamour models in the UK. They wanted to make
Speaker 2: known the allegations of abuse at the hands of the
Speaker 2: photographer Luis Gomez. That email is what started this whole investigation.
Speaker 2: Reporting on it has been a wild ride. That's been
Speaker 2: unlike any other story I've worked on before. With the
Speaker 2: journalist of the Apocalypse, it had highs.
Speaker 3: When was the last time I had a creditor?
Speaker 2: I have never had a critics done by This is
Speaker 2: my debut and Low's should think we should leave.
Speaker 3: I think we should even.
Speaker 1: Come back because we're going really weird vibes.
Speaker 3: And investor wormholes. It's been so hard to get people
Speaker 3: to talk. We've tried to get in touch with one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty nine people, Oh my god, from sort
Speaker 3: of the international magazine world.
Speaker 2: And out of those one hundred and eighty nine people,
Speaker 2: how many wanted to talk.
Speaker 3: Two?
Speaker 1: Well there's.
Speaker 2: But despite all that, this series was not my first rodeo.
Speaker 2: In the previous Bonus episode, you heard me talk to
Speaker 2: charity organization heard about how I went about reporting on
Speaker 2: this story. In this episode, it's time for you to
Speaker 2: get to know me a little better.
Speaker 3: Why I'm drawn to stories.
Speaker 2: Like these, what work I've done in the past that
Speaker 2: fed into this investigation, and why the women in this
Speaker 2: series sought my help in the first place. I'm Ellie
Speaker 2: Flynn and from the team at Novel. This is The
Speaker 2: Bunny Trap Bonus episode two. Why joining me now is
Speaker 2: someone to pepper me with questions because it would probably
Speaker 2: be a bit weird if I tried to interview myself.
Speaker 1: Hi, Ellie, thanks so much for being up for being
Speaker 1: on the other side of the microphone and talking about
Speaker 1: your work.
Speaker 2: Georgian Moody is one of the editors of The Bunny Trap,
Speaker 2: and she's here in the studio with me.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should start with the basics. What made you
Speaker 1: want to be an injasically journalist in the first place.
Speaker 2: So I have always wanted to be a journalist since
Speaker 2: I can remember. To be honest, I think before I
Speaker 2: even fully understood what it was, I remember my mum
Speaker 2: saying to me when I was quite young, that I
Speaker 2: would make it a journalist. I think that's just because
Speaker 2: I was really annoying and asked non stock questions and
Speaker 2: was just incredibly noisy, and so it was something that starts.
Speaker 2: I liked writing when I was young, so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm going to be a journalist. Without knowing
Speaker 2: really what that even meant. I went to journalism school
Speaker 2: and found myself being drawn towards investigations. I think it
Speaker 2: comes from that same nosiness that I've had since I
Speaker 2: was a child, where I love digging into things. Was
Speaker 2: something as an add up asking questions, picking at it,
Speaker 2: picking at it, picking at it, and trying to get
Speaker 2: to the bottom of something.
Speaker 1: And so what was the first investigation you worked on?
Speaker 2: So the first big investigation I did was looking at
Speaker 2: rent for sex arrangements in the UK, which is where
Speaker 2: a landlord would offer a free or subsidized accommodation to
Speaker 2: tenants in exchange for sexual favors. And it was obviously
Speaker 2: a really really exploitative practice and it was really awful.
Speaker 2: But I first came across it in a local news
Speaker 2: article where some journalists I think from Kent, which is
Speaker 2: a region in the UK, had found that they there
Speaker 2: were adverts on a website advertising these kind of arrangements,
Speaker 2: and I remember being really shocked by it. But also
Speaker 2: thinking well, if it's happening in Kent, it must be
Speaker 2: happening in other places. How big is this? How much
Speaker 2: is it happening all over the UK? But the other
Speaker 2: question I had was, well, as anyone taking them up,
Speaker 2: is anyone actually having to enter into these arrangements because
Speaker 2: they've got no alternative? And so that's what I went
Speaker 2: to investigate, and that was my first documentary.
Speaker 1: Ellie, this is an opportunity for you to blow your
Speaker 1: own trumpet? God, is there a career achievement that you're
Speaker 1: most proud of?
Speaker 2: I there was a law changed after the Rent for
Speaker 2: Sex documentary that I did. At the time of the
Speaker 2: documentary for sex arrangements were not specifically a criminal offense.
Speaker 2: There was a technicality that meant that it could be
Speaker 2: prosecuted under already existing but there had been no prosecutions
Speaker 2: and it was quite complicated. And after the documentary went
Speaker 2: now and sort of increased pressure from campaign groups and
Speaker 2: more reporting on it as an issue, eventually a law
Speaker 2: was introduced specifically making room for sex arrangements at criminal offense.
Speaker 1: Was it called the Elief Flynn law.
Speaker 2: It was not called the Ellif Flyn law, but maybe
Speaker 2: I should campaign for that sort of sounds like I'm
Speaker 2: a perpetrators, so maybe not, actually no, yeah, maybe you
Speaker 2: don't want Yeah. I think more broadly, I feel really
Speaker 2: really proud to have been able to give a voice
Speaker 2: to people who may not be heard otherwise, and I
Speaker 2: think getting that out to a broad audience and they're
Speaker 2: being impact as a result of it is something that
Speaker 2: I'll always feel really really proud of.
Speaker 1: A lot of your work has looked at issues like
Speaker 1: in that series and in our series about women and
Speaker 1: power and sex. Why do you think you're drawn to
Speaker 1: those issues in particular?
Speaker 2: I think unfortunately, those issues are just so prevalent, and
Speaker 2: it just feels like they come up time and time again,
Speaker 2: and I feel like, no matter how much journalists like
Speaker 2: me or organizations like the ones that we've heard from
Speaker 2: in this series kind of bang the drama and do
Speaker 2: what they can to try and change things, there is
Speaker 2: a cultural problem. I think that means that violence against
Speaker 2: women and girls all over the world is a huge,
Speaker 2: huge problem, and so these stories are happening everywhere, all
Speaker 2: over the world all the time, and I've just always
Speaker 2: felt like it's really important to try and highlight that.
Speaker 1: I know you've also looked at the rise of Only Fans,
Speaker 1: a site that made it possible for so many people
Speaker 1: to enter the sex industry and create content and make
Speaker 1: money from their home. Can you tell me about that work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I did a documentary in twenty nineteen looking
Speaker 2: into this relatively new platform that people didn't really know
Speaker 2: very much about called OnlyFans, and it was just before
Speaker 2: the pandemic, which was when Only Fans really really blew up,
Speaker 2: and it was this sort of quite new, unique thing,
Speaker 2: but people were making insane amounts of money on it,
Speaker 2: and I mean that was initially what we wanted to
Speaker 2: look into, was sort of like, what is this thing?
Speaker 2: How much money are people actually making and is that
Speaker 2: true across the board? And what we found in our
Speaker 2: documentary is that, yes, it is possible to make a
Speaker 2: huge amount of money on OnlyFans for a very very
Speaker 2: few number of models, and actually the vast majority of
Speaker 2: people who start using OnlyFans make very little money, you know,
Speaker 2: don't make ends meet with it at all. And so
Speaker 2: then you're looking at all of these other kind of
Speaker 2: streams of thing come and that's partly what we look
Speaker 2: into in this series is sort of the opportunities that
Speaker 2: then come to people in that world, and the exploitation
Speaker 2: that comes with those supposed opportunities. It's a really, really
Speaker 2: taboo subjet. I think people don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I think people have a lot of judgment for the
Speaker 2: people who use only fans, particularly women who use only fans.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of shame attached to it,
Speaker 2: and I've always wanted to destigmatize that while also being
Speaker 2: realistic about the pitfalls, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: the women in this series have been realistic about the
Speaker 2: pitfalls of only fans.
Speaker 3: Of the sex industry.
Speaker 2: It is rife with exploitation, and I don't think we
Speaker 2: should shy away from that, but I think we do
Speaker 2: need to change the narrative where the women who are
Speaker 2: in this industry aren't being shamed for being a part
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was your history of reporting on
Speaker 1: the sex industry and women in the industry that meant
Speaker 1: that the women at the heart of our series, The
Speaker 1: Bunny Trap contacted you.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: I think there is understandably quite a lot of distrust
Speaker 2: of the media among sex workers, among women who use OnlyFans,
Speaker 2: and I think that's understandable when you look at some
Speaker 2: of the reporting that's been done. But I think the
Speaker 2: documentary that we made back in twenty nineteen tried really
Speaker 2: hard to make it without judgment and without stigma, and
Speaker 2: was just you know, looking into what only fans is
Speaker 2: when it works, when it doesn't, what are the issues?
Speaker 3: What should we be aware of?
Speaker 2: And I think that gave me a level of credibility,
Speaker 2: and I think that it enabled the people that I
Speaker 2: then came to meet in this series to trust me.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what was going through your mind when
Speaker 1: you first open the email from the UK models at
Speaker 1: the hand of this story.
Speaker 2: I think any tip or story you get, you approach
Speaker 2: with a level of cynicism because you have to, because
Speaker 2: I get so many stories that aren't stories or our
Speaker 2: opinions or just have no evidence behind them. So there's
Speaker 2: never a moment of like, oh my god, because you
Speaker 2: can't allow yourself as an investive journalist to have that moment,
Speaker 2: because you have to say, Okay, well this sounds interesting,
Speaker 2: but where's the evidence, Like where do I go from here?
Speaker 2: I remember reading it and thinking, God, this sounds awful.
Speaker 2: If it's true, it's quite shocking, and I went off,
Speaker 2: and I looked up Luis Gomez and the first thing
Speaker 2: I saw was all of these Playboy covers posted on
Speaker 2: his Instagram, Playboy cover after Playboy cover after Playboy cover.
Speaker 2: So instantly I was like, well, this looks kind of legit,
Speaker 2: and that was kind of what set me off. I
Speaker 2: was like, well, he does appear to be working for
Speaker 2: Playboy on the surface. They say they've got models, they
Speaker 2: say they've got screenshots, they say they've got conversations. I
Speaker 2: was like, right, okay, let's see what you've got. And
Speaker 2: you know, next thing you know, I've been sent a
Speaker 2: trove of evidence from the models.
Speaker 1: One of the things we cover in The Bunny Trap
Speaker 1: is that, to the best of your knowledge, you're the
Speaker 1: only journalists that responded to their call out. Why do
Speaker 1: you think that happened? Why do you think other journalists
Speaker 1: didn't also follow this lead.
Speaker 3: I don't know for sure.
Speaker 2: I know how many tips day a news desk gets,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's a world where it just happened
Speaker 2: to get lost by all of them. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sure that does happen all the time,
Speaker 2: but a big part of me questions if it's because
Speaker 2: of the world that these women work in. That is
Speaker 2: something I've always wondered, you know, if they worked in
Speaker 2: a different industry, almost any other industry, and this person
Speaker 2: seemed to have the level of power and credibility that
Speaker 2: Luis seemed to have on the surface, would it have
Speaker 2: been at least looked into. And I think that's what
Speaker 2: I found really shocking is that it wasn't even looked into.
Speaker 2: There wasn't even an initial conversation or a request for
Speaker 2: the evidence.
Speaker 3: It just never got picked up.
Speaker 2: It never got responded to, not even a cursory look
Speaker 2: as far as I'm aware.
Speaker 1: So in the last episode, we looked at how we
Speaker 1: can best care for contributors who were interviewing about sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: But it's also tough on you, as the reporter and
Speaker 1: interviewer to kind of keep asking people questions about something
Speaker 1: which is inherently difficult and often traumatic. How do you
Speaker 1: look after yourself when you're investigating a series with heavy
Speaker 1: subject matter like this one.
Speaker 2: I think I am quite good at compartmentalizing almost where
Speaker 2: I'm able to separate myself from the things that I'm investigating.
Speaker 2: I think that a journalist's role is to give people
Speaker 2: space to tell their stories and to ask questions that
Speaker 2: enable those stories to get out to the public. When
Speaker 2: I'm doing an interview, I really try not to make
Speaker 2: it about me. I try and ask questions that just
Speaker 2: give the person I'm interviewing space to tell me how
Speaker 2: they feel, tell me their experiences, and tell me what's
Speaker 2: happened in a way that they feel comfortable doing. And
Speaker 2: my role is to ask those questions. I just always
Speaker 2: remind myself that it is not about me. I've got
Speaker 2: a job to do that. My job is to get
Speaker 2: the facts, check the facts, listen to someone, give them
Speaker 2: space to tell their story and get their story out
Speaker 2: to the public. And so I'm quite pragmatic about it,
Speaker 2: and I think that helps take the emotion out slightly
Speaker 2: on my end.
Speaker 1: If there is emotion and I know there have been
Speaker 1: things as part of this investigation which have been upsetting,
Speaker 1: does that sometimes help motivate you to keep doing the job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: And it's always kind of actually after the interviews or
Speaker 2: it's more about how those stories are then going to
Speaker 2: be represented or told. Like I think I've I find
Speaker 2: myself becoming a lot more emotionally invested in the process.
Speaker 2: After an interview than I do when I'm there in
Speaker 2: that moment speaking to someone, because it's so important to
Speaker 2: get it right, and I really want to be responsible
Speaker 2: with my journalism, and that can sometimes feel like a
Speaker 2: heavy burden because it's important. And then I think that
Speaker 2: that emotion definitely becomes a driving force in terms of
Speaker 2: the stories that I'm investigating, the things I want to expose,
Speaker 2: the stories I want to tell, but also in trying
Speaker 2: as much as I can to make sure that I
Speaker 2: get it right when it comes to putting these things
Speaker 2: out in the world.
Speaker 1: In an interview, I totally hear what you're saying about
Speaker 1: it not being about you, But there are moments in
Speaker 1: this series where you're being a very real human person
Speaker 1: when someone that you're speaking to is crying. I guess
Speaker 1: I wonder what that's like for you, Ellie the human
Speaker 1: being and then Ellie the investigative journalist, and whether those
Speaker 1: things are in conflict or sometimes work together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they always work together. Of course, if
Speaker 2: you're in a room and someone is visibly upset and
Speaker 2: crying like it's I think impossible not to be affected
Speaker 2: by that or to not feel like you want to
Speaker 2: give them a hug or you want to, and you know,
Speaker 2: often what I'll do is I'll say, let's just like
Speaker 2: turn this off for a second, as have a moment
Speaker 2: to take a breather, Let's not ask any more questions.
Speaker 2: Give someone the time to kind of gather themselves until
Speaker 2: they feel ready to speak again. And it's in those
Speaker 2: moments that I sort of turn off my journalism, I
Speaker 2: suppose I and I will just be there to sort
Speaker 2: of make sure they're okay and try and support them.
Speaker 2: And I think that that works hand in hand with
Speaker 2: being a good investigative journalist, because, especially if the stories
Speaker 2: you're investigating have a human element, you have to be
Speaker 2: a human to be able to tell them effectively.
Speaker 1: What do you think are the qualities that makes a
Speaker 1: good invasicative journalist?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because I think actually the qualities that
Speaker 2: I think make a good investigative journalist are not always
Speaker 2: the qualities that you would associate with it. I think
Speaker 2: probably if you'd asked me years ago, I'd have thought
Speaker 2: it would need to be someone who's, you know, really
Speaker 2: really organized, and then all the things that I am,
Speaker 2: in all honesty, I have to work really really hard
Speaker 2: to make sure that I am organized but what I
Speaker 2: am is tenacious, I guess, and I don't let things go,
Speaker 2: and I will keep going and keep going and keep
Speaker 2: going until I get to the bottom of something. And
Speaker 2: you know, the other aspect of it is that I
Speaker 2: think I do have a motive human side, which I
Speaker 2: bring into all of my investigations. And I think especially
Speaker 2: because the things that I investigate tend to be issues
Speaker 2: that affect women or you know that they look at
Speaker 2: social injustices, and so I think the driving force for
Speaker 2: those kind of investigations always has to come from a
Speaker 2: place of realizing that it's really important and wanting change.
Speaker 2: It's not all about kind of like putting complex data
Speaker 2: into a spreadsheet and trying to get to the bottom
Speaker 2: of it. And there are brilliant investative journalists who do
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, but it's not my bag.
Speaker 1: What are some of the lessons that you'll take away
Speaker 1: from working on this story.
Speaker 2: I think one of the struggles that we had in
Speaker 2: making this was knowing when to keep your cards close
Speaker 2: to your chest and when to reach out for more information.
Speaker 2: And that's always a dance that you have to do
Speaker 2: when you're looking into something, because you need contacts for
Speaker 2: information and you need to reach out to people and
Speaker 2: see what they know and see if you can get
Speaker 2: any intelligence on whatever you're looking into. And that's a
Speaker 2: really important part of being a journalist. On the flip side,
Speaker 2: when you are doing an investigation like this and it
Speaker 2: is very sensitive and there is risk involved, you also
Speaker 2: want to keep your cards very close to your chest,
Speaker 2: and so you don't necessarily want that person to know
Speaker 2: who you are or what you're doing. And I think
Speaker 2: that was something that was always a struggle. And I
Speaker 2: think knowing when to reach out to people and when
Speaker 2: to keep quiet is really difficult. And I think that, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's something that I will I'll always come up against
Speaker 2: and that I think I'll probably learn from in this.
Speaker 1: I know you've worked in TV as well as audio podcasts.
Speaker 1: Is there something you think that makes this story more
Speaker 1: fitting for audio.
Speaker 2: I think the complexity of it makes it more fitting
Speaker 2: to audio. I think that it gives us the space
Speaker 2: to really dig into some of those thorny issues, for example,
Speaker 2: around exactly what Luis's connection is to Playboy. And I
Speaker 2: think that if you're making a one hour documentary, you
Speaker 2: just don't have the space to really really dig into
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 3: This is really complicated.
Speaker 2: This world is complicated, so I think that that complexity
Speaker 2: lent itself to audio, and I think people feel that
Speaker 2: it's easier to talk and to open up and to
Speaker 2: share their stories when there's not a camera. Think think
Speaker 2: the contributors sometimes felt quite relieved that it was audio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's something people often use the word
Speaker 1: intimate about audio, and I think going into a room
Speaker 1: where we're just hearing you speaking to a woman about
Speaker 1: what happened, like, I think that really brings the listener
Speaker 1: with us into that space in a way that I
Speaker 1: love about audio and podcasts. Yeah, the Vanni Trap is
Speaker 1: finally out in the world, which we're also excited by.
Speaker 1: What are you hoping that listeners to this series take
Speaker 1: away from it?
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that listeners have a bit more understanding and
Speaker 2: compassion for people who work in the sex industry. I
Speaker 2: want to challenge the misconception that if you work in
Speaker 2: this industry and if you go into that room to
Speaker 2: do whatever it is you're planning to do with whoever
Speaker 2: it is that you're going to be in there with,
Speaker 2: that that in some way opens you up to whatever
Speaker 2: can had happened Because that's just not true. Consent is
Speaker 2: always important, and you might be consenting to doing some
Speaker 2: things that are sexually explicit, some things, you know, sexual acts,
Speaker 2: maybe even sometimes, but if you were drawing a line
Speaker 2: somewhere and you were saying, I don't want to go
Speaker 2: any further than this, than that line should always be respected.
Speaker 2: And just because whatever you were doing up until that
Speaker 2: line may have been provocative or sexual in some way,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make the line any more blurred. And I
Speaker 2: think that that's really at the heart of this and
Speaker 2: that is I think the most important thing for people
Speaker 2: to take away from this series. Like, this series is
Speaker 2: nuanced and complicated, but that part of it shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: And what about the women at the heart of this story?
Speaker 1: What are you hoping that they take away from listening
Speaker 1: to this series.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been a long, long road.
Speaker 2: I guess I hope that they heard, and I guess
Speaker 2: I hope that they feel this is some sort of justice.
Speaker 2: I think that they're just relieved that it's out, and
Speaker 2: I hope they know how much at work went into
Speaker 2: getting it out there and how important this story was
Speaker 2: to me as well on a personal level. It's always
Speaker 2: been really important, so I hope that they know that.
Speaker 1: Well, Ellie, thank you so much for putting up with
Speaker 1: being on the other side of the night today.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's weird. Well I didn't grill you, so yeah,
Speaker 3: no hard questions.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us for the second bonus episode of
Speaker 2: The Bunny Trap. We've got one more bonus episode for you.
Speaker 2: Next time, you'll hear some trade secrets from a mother
Speaker 2: daughter duo who both worked as Playboy photographers. They tell
Speaker 2: us the secret to a good glamour sheet and what
Speaker 2: shooting for Playboy was like in its heyday. Hint it
Speaker 2: might have involved some passying at the Playboy mansion. We
Speaker 2: contacted Luis Gomez multiple times for comment, but we never
Speaker 2: heard back. He has not been charged with any crimes
Speaker 2: and is presumed innocent under the law. We also sought
Speaker 2: comment from Playboy USA. They declined our requests for an interview,
Speaker 2: but stated that they asked their licensees to blacklist the
Speaker 2: photographer mentioned in this series and that they prohibit paid
Speaker 2: to play the practice of charging models to appear in magazines.
Speaker 2: The Bunny Trap is produced by Novel. For more from Novel,
Speaker 2: visit Novel the audio. The show is hosted by me
Speaker 2: Ellie Flynn. You can find me on social media by
Speaker 2: searching my name. That's Ellie E double l I E
Speaker 2: Flynn fly double N. This series is produced by Eleanor
Speaker 2: Biggs and this episode is produced by Amalia Sortland, additional
Speaker 2: production from Lee Meyer and Saskia Collette. The editors are
Speaker 2: Georgia Moody and Austin Mitchell are executive producers and Max
Speaker 2: O'Brien and Craig Strachan. Production management from Scherie Houston and
Speaker 2: Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson
Speaker 2: and Nicholas Alexander. Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Eleanor Biggs
Speaker 2: and Max O'Brien.
Speaker 3: Original music composed.
Speaker 2: And performed by Jake Long and additional production by Nicholas Alexander,
Speaker 2: Louisa Gerstein and Daniel Kempson. The series artwork was designed
Speaker 2: by Christina Limcole Willard Foxtons, Creative Director of Development
Speaker 1: Novel