Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: Hey listeners, this is Ellie Flynn. Before we get started,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to let you know that this episode
Speaker 2: contains references to alleged sexual abuse. It's also a story
Speaker 2: of female empowerment and camaraderie thanks to the women who
Speaker 2: have shared their stories with us. We contacted the photographer
Speaker 2: mentioned in this podcast multiple times for comment, but we
Speaker 2: never heard back. He has not been charged with any
Speaker 2: crimes and is presumed innocent under the law. We also
Speaker 2: contacted Playboy USA. They state that they have asked their
Speaker 2: licensees to blacklist the photographer mentioned in this series and
Speaker 2: that they prohibit pay to play, which you'll hear more
Speaker 2: about later in this episode. Our research into his association
Speaker 2: to Playboy and their statement will also be detailed in
Speaker 2: this episode. Oh and one more thing. Some of the
Speaker 2: voice notes you'll hear in this episode of all by actors.
Speaker 2: If I was to ask you where in the world
Speaker 2: might a playmate live, your answer probably wouldn't be in
Speaker 2: a nondescript house on a quiet road in rural England.
Speaker 2: But that's just where me and my producer Eleanor have come.
Speaker 2: Outside the window, muddy fields stretch out as far as
Speaker 2: the eye can see hello, how are you doing? Nice
Speaker 2: to see in the hallway kids Wellington boots, footballs and
Speaker 2: skateboards are stacked haphazardly. And in the living room lucky
Speaker 2: cats here. Yes, do you know what?
Speaker 3: He's not normally in here? He's very already come to here.
Speaker 3: I think you've got the charm.
Speaker 2: So much. What's his name again? Frank? Me and Eleanor
Speaker 2: haven't come here to meet Frank. Okay, okay, we haven't
Speaker 2: just come here to meet Frank. We're also here to
Speaker 2: meet Fiona Hollingsworth.
Speaker 1: I have been in the modern ing industry nearly all
Speaker 1: my life, to be honest, gosh, we're probably talking twenty years.
Speaker 2: Fiona was in her late thirties when she met Luis
Speaker 2: Gomez during his twenty twenty UK tour. She's one of
Speaker 2: the few models we've spoken to who hasn't accused Louise
Speaker 2: of sexual misconduct. But I still find her story really upsetting.
Speaker 2: Luise gave Fiona his usual spiel. He could make her
Speaker 2: a star. He could get her in Playboy. He could
Speaker 2: even get her the most coveted title in Glamour.
Speaker 1: He said, for five thousand pounds, I could be the
Speaker 1: Playboy playmate.
Speaker 2: We've heard of Luise charging for photo shoots before from
Speaker 2: people like her, but charging someone to become a playboy playmate,
Speaker 2: that's new to us. But Fiona didn't bat an eyelid.
Speaker 1: In this industry, you have to put your money into
Speaker 1: it in order to get the money back. So you know,
Speaker 1: that could have helped me hugely in the future.
Speaker 2: Fionna's a single mum with four kids. Times were tough.
Speaker 1: That was like, oh, you know, I'm really tight for money.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I can.
Speaker 2: But she knew this opportunity wouldn't come knocking again, so
Speaker 2: she borrowed the money. Fiona understood from Luis that all
Speaker 2: she needed to become a playmate was an official certificate
Speaker 2: showing that she'd been published, but when it arrived in
Speaker 2: the post, it didn't quite live up to expectations.
Speaker 1: It's like a poster basically, so it's not actually a certificate.
Speaker 1: I think it just says Fiona Hollingsworth Playboy playmate, photographer,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 2: Et cetera. Fiona shows me her playmate certificate. It's a
Speaker 2: page of shiny photo paper with a picture of Fiona
Speaker 2: and the famous playboy Bunny logo. Fiona's topless, looking sultraally
Speaker 2: into the camera. She looks great, but overall the edit's bad.
Speaker 2: The design doesn't even cover a full page, and it's
Speaker 2: got tacky white borders on the edges. What's more, the
Speaker 2: photo shoot appears to have been done in a kitchen
Speaker 2: and not Kim Kardashian's. You can see a silver toaster
Speaker 2: and tupperware boxes in the background, and the scenery is
Speaker 2: not the only issue. Luise has censored Fiona's nipples with
Speaker 2: white circles, which seemed to glow. It's supposed to be
Speaker 2: the document that makes Fiona an official playmate, but even
Speaker 2: with Playmate Fiona superimposed in big letters, this feels about
Speaker 2: as far from Playboy's centerfold as it's possible to imagine.
Speaker 2: But Luis has published so many models in Playboy, so
Speaker 2: it must be legit, right, So Fiona went to Instagram
Speaker 2: to try and get herself verified. It's partly why she
Speaker 2: invested in becoming a playmate, because a blue tick next
Speaker 2: to her name would open up a new world of
Speaker 2: professional opportunities.
Speaker 1: Lewis has been saying to me, Yeah, if you just
Speaker 1: hand those over to Instagram, that is enough to get
Speaker 1: you verified.
Speaker 2: This was before you could pay to be verified. Fiona
Speaker 2: sent a picture of her Playmate certificate to Instagram, expecting
Speaker 2: her account to get a blue tick, but Instagram never
Speaker 2: got back to her. She sent it again and again,
Speaker 2: still nothing.
Speaker 1: I have tried. It must have been about four times
Speaker 1: and I have still not become verified. I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's because I don't have a lot of followers.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And then a friend of hers got in touch.
Speaker 1: She was saying that she heard that Playboy has actually finished.
Speaker 1: They're not actually published anymore. He's not really working for them.
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: If Luis isn't working for Playboy, then what the hell
Speaker 2: did Fiona pay five grand for?
Speaker 1: I would love to know the answers. This must be
Speaker 1: one of the biggest scams out there today.
Speaker 2: I'm Ellie Flynn and from the team at Novel. This
Speaker 2: is the Bunny Trap, Episode four, Pay for Play. Along
Speaker 2: with the certificate, fi owner was sent a copy of
Speaker 2: the Playboy magazine she was published in back home. I
Speaker 2: take a closer look at it with my producer Eleanor.
Speaker 2: It's my first time seeing one of Luisa's Playboy magazines
Speaker 2: in real life. Okay, this is Playboy Portugal. So on surface,
Speaker 2: at the jit it looks like other Playboy magazines that
Speaker 2: I've seen in the past. I mean, one thing that
Speaker 2: seems like slightly orders, how thin it is it's only
Speaker 2: twenty pages long. And another red flag. I think it's
Speaker 2: strange that there there's no articles in here. It's just photos.
Speaker 2: The pages are stapled together rather than professionally bound. It's
Speaker 2: all matt whereas I usually would expect a magazine to
Speaker 2: be glossy, and there's no centerfold. Fiona isn't in the
Speaker 2: centerfold as a playmate normally would be. Instead, she's actually
Speaker 2: near the end of the magazine. It says playmate next
Speaker 2: to Fiona. So maybe that's what makes her a playmate.
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's something there's something not quite right
Speaker 2: about this. I take another look at Fiona's playmate certificate.
Speaker 2: I don't think that this piece of paper that I'm
Speaker 2: looking at is any kind of actual certification that she's
Speaker 2: a playmate. It doesn't look like it's come from Playboy,
Speaker 2: and she paid five thousand pounds for this. Oh my
Speaker 2: god's so sad. Until now I'd thought I was investigating
Speaker 2: awful allegations of sexual abuse against a Playboy photographer. There
Speaker 2: were loads of things I was questioning when it came
Speaker 2: to Luise's legitimacy, but in all honesty, his connection to
Speaker 2: Playboy wasn't one of them. Because Luis looks legit online.
Speaker 2: He's shooting big time glamor models around the world, hosting
Speaker 2: his Playboy publications on social media, and being credited as
Speaker 2: a photographer from what appears to be Playboy accounts. So
Speaker 2: what the fuck is going on here? What's the deal
Speaker 2: with his connection to Playboy? It's time for a quick
Speaker 2: history lesson. Playboy was founded in nineteen fifty three. It
Speaker 2: became the world's most famous men's magazine, and it's like
Speaker 2: the conic bunny logo was heralded as part of the
Speaker 2: sexual revolution. The magazine became the staff of legend, as
Speaker 2: did the antics of its founder, Hugh Hefner. His harem
Speaker 2: with much younger girlfriends and alleged drug fueled orgies at
Speaker 2: his Playboy mansion made the brand notorious for decades. Playboy
Speaker 2: magazine shifted millions of copies every month, but it was
Speaker 2: slow off the mark to adapt to the digital age.
Speaker 2: By the early two thousands, the print industry was dying
Speaker 2: and Playboy was in decline.
Speaker 1: High speed internet porn allows you to essentially be on
Speaker 1: there twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 2: And you can just click online. Porn pretty much obliterated
Speaker 2: the demand for traditional men's mags. People didn't need Playboy
Speaker 2: to get off anymore, and the original audience for the
Speaker 2: magazine was literally dying off. Playboy needed to reinvent itself.
Speaker 2: Funny and playmids remain, but Playboy rebuilds its brand. In
Speaker 2: the twenty tens, Playboy went through an identity cris editors
Speaker 2: banned nudity.
Speaker 4: There will be a Playmate of the Month, but the
Speaker 4: poses will be more PG.
Speaker 2: Thirteen. Unsurprisingly, that didn't work, so they unbanned it. And
Speaker 2: then in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: We have some breaking news for you tonight. Playboy founder
Speaker 3: Hugh Hefner has died at the age of ninety one.
Speaker 2: Without its founder, Playboy was lost. By twenty eighteen, circulation
Speaker 2: of the magazine had fallen to roughly two hundred and
Speaker 2: ten thousand copies a month, down from three point one
Speaker 2: million in two thousand. Playboy USA decided to cut its
Speaker 2: losses and go fully online. And its final magazine was
Speaker 2: printed in March twenty twenty, and yet Luis published Figona
Speaker 2: in several Playboy magazines in summer twenty twenty, months after
Speaker 2: the magazine shut down. How's that happened? The answer is
Speaker 2: complicated because Luis wasn't shooting for Playboy USA, the magazine
Speaker 2: most of us are sociate with the brand. We haven't
Speaker 2: found any evidence of any of Luisa's photos ever appearing
Speaker 2: in that magazine. Instead, Luis's shooting for international editions of Playboy.
Speaker 1: I've been in like three of them now. I've been
Speaker 1: in Playboy Spain, Playboy Croatia, and Playboy Portugal.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just Fiona, what Playboy were you? Published
Speaker 2: in Playboy Portugal Portugal? I was in the Portugal mag
Speaker 2: International playboys are sold like franchises and operate independently to
Speaker 2: Playboy USA. Playboy USA has been selling international licenses to
Speaker 2: external publishers for decades. As far back as the seventies,
Speaker 2: there have been global editions of Playboy magazine. In the
Speaker 2: early noughties, there were around twenty international editions in circulation.
Speaker 2: All of them were ruled with an iron fist by
Speaker 2: Hugh Hefler. A former director of Playboy's international magazines depart
Speaker 2: told me no photograph or article was published in any
Speaker 2: language without HEF's approval, and if any international publisher violated
Speaker 2: Playboy's strict editorial standards, they could lose their license. One
Speaker 2: global edition got pulled in twenty ten for publishing a
Speaker 2: pornographic Jesus Christ as their cover star. But our new
Speaker 2: CEO changed all of that. The CEO has radically changed
Speaker 2: the company.
Speaker 1: He's outsourced everything he could outsource and has really focused
Speaker 1: on making Playboy a licensing business.
Speaker 2: A licensing business aka monetizing Playboy's famous bunny logo for
Speaker 2: cold hard cash. Any Tom, Dick or Harry with enough
Speaker 2: money could buy a Playboy license for anything, water bottles,
Speaker 2: air fresheners, or international magazines. Some of these magazines do
Speaker 2: seem legit with actual editorial teams, but Playboy HQ no
Speaker 2: longer vet the teams or have editors or oversight, which
Speaker 2: means that basically anyone suddenly gets access to the biggest
Speaker 2: glamour brand in the world. This is how people like
Speaker 2: Luis Gomez become so called Playboy photographers. Believe me, it's
Speaker 2: really hard to understand the difference between Playboy US and
Speaker 2: these international franchises. So imagine being an up and coming
Speaker 2: model just entering the industry and trying to work this
Speaker 2: stuff out.
Speaker 5: I don't know if enough people realize how that business
Speaker 5: model works anymore. There's a very big difference between Playboy USA,
Speaker 5: which is the flagship brand, and other franchises around the world.
Speaker 2: That's Nino Batista. He's the photography instructor who first met
Speaker 2: Luis in twenty fifteen and a longtime industry insider.
Speaker 5: If you shot for Playboy in nineteen ninety seven, then
Speaker 5: almost certainly you were commissioned and or employed by Playboy
Speaker 5: and it was a big, big deal. That business model
Speaker 5: has changed radically. Most of the international Playboy franchises work
Speaker 5: very differently than that.
Speaker 2: Armed with my new knowledge about in national Playboy magazines,
Speaker 2: I take another look at FI owners and something strikes me.
Speaker 2: It's got no barcode. So that's odd because you wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to scan it in a shop. And my
Speaker 2: producer Eleanor investigates why.
Speaker 6: Playboy Portugal it is not available to buy the UK,
Speaker 6: is not available to buy anywhere. In order to get
Speaker 6: a copy of the magazine, you need to buy it
Speaker 6: off a site called Magster.
Speaker 2: Magster is like an online newsagent that stocks everything. They've
Speaker 2: got time. They've got The Guardian, Evening, Standard, Daily Style,
Speaker 2: Daily Express. Yeah, that looks legit. Men's Magazine too.
Speaker 1: We go.
Speaker 2: They also sell Luis's own homemade magazines and multiple editions
Speaker 2: of international playboys that he's shot for. Many of these
Speaker 2: playboys share a publisher, and it's not Playboy Enterprises Untapped
Speaker 2: World Publishing. They seem to be the biggest publisher in
Speaker 2: this space, Untapped World Publishing. I hadn't heard of them,
Speaker 2: but it looks like Luis has shot with them for years.
Speaker 2: This private company based in South Africa seems to be
Speaker 2: leading the international playboy publication market. Oh my god. They
Speaker 2: published so many international editions. So we've got Playboy Australia,
Speaker 2: Playboy South Africa, Playboy Africa, Playboy Sweden, Playboy Denmark, Playboy Finland,
Speaker 2: Playboy Norway, Playboy New Zealand. When my assistant producer, Amalia
Speaker 2: looks into it, things get weird.
Speaker 7: Something is off, no website, the number is defunct. I've
Speaker 7: emailed all the people that I've found associated and only
Speaker 7: one got back to me. And she thought that the
Speaker 7: company had closed down.
Speaker 2: Right, So if you look up Untapped World Publishing as
Speaker 2: one director and his name's Dirk's team Camp. Dirk lives
Speaker 2: in America now and he makes himself out to be
Speaker 2: a bit of a media magnate. He even appeared on
Speaker 2: the podcast talking about how he's made a career out
Speaker 2: of purchasing international magazine licenses.
Speaker 8: I started my own thing. I got a license for
Speaker 8: a magazine called Fighters only for the South African region.
Speaker 8: It's been a couple of years later. Now we're publishing
Speaker 8: fifty odd titles in four different countries.
Speaker 2: But nowhere in this interview does he mention anything about
Speaker 2: glamor magazines. And there's nothing on his Instagram page about
Speaker 2: the International Playboys either. Everyone on the team has reached
Speaker 2: out to him via Instagram by email that does not
Speaker 2: want to talk. We've not left him alone, No, we've
Speaker 2: been handing why might Dirk want to keep his international
Speaker 2: glamour empire under wraps? It's confusing because this company looks
Speaker 2: legit like there's business articles about him making acquisitions of magazines.
Speaker 2: He's mentioned on the Playboy official Wikipedia page. Why oh interesting?
Speaker 2: So researching Dirk's the incomp online mentions a model who
Speaker 2: filed a lawsuit the model's allegation that she paid thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars to appear in a fake magazine.
Speaker 9: The entertainment business is a very dirty business. Anybody who
Speaker 9: goes into it should be very weary and not trust
Speaker 9: anybody except your lawyer, and even your lawyers, you don't
Speaker 9: want to really trust them all that much.
Speaker 2: And listen to me. That's Drew Sherman, a lawyer from
Speaker 2: Los Angeles who specializes in the entertainment industry. After almost
Speaker 2: two decades in the business, he thought he'd seen it
Speaker 2: all until he was blown away by a new case.
Speaker 2: Drew was contacted by a model who told him that
Speaker 2: she'd been scammed in twenty sixteen by both Dirkstein Camp
Speaker 2: and a photographer working with him. To be clear, this
Speaker 2: was another Glamor photographer, not Luis Gomez. The model said
Speaker 2: that she'd paid to appear in an international edition of
Speaker 2: a Maxim magazine that didn't really exist. Maxim's another big
Speaker 2: Glamor magazine.
Speaker 9: Maxim is a legitimate magazine, but we alleged and we
Speaker 9: believed that the people that were licensed to these various
Speaker 9: versions internationally, this one person at least was using that
Speaker 9: right that they had to then make other illegitimate versions
Speaker 9: and swindle people out of their money.
Speaker 2: The model claimed she paid a photographer to be published
Speaker 2: in Maxim South Africa, a magazine Dirk owned. The license
Speaker 2: for The fee was ten thousand dollars in total. Four
Speaker 2: thousand went to the photographer for shoot and six thousand
Speaker 2: went to Dirk to get her on the cover. Then,
Speaker 2: she says, the publisher and photographer told her that they
Speaker 2: could get her and even more Maxim magazines if she
Speaker 2: paid more money to.
Speaker 9: Dirk, Maxim Nigeria and a Maxim Middle East.
Speaker 2: But when she only received digital versions of these magazines
Speaker 2: and no hard copies, she became suspicious, so she hired
Speaker 2: people on the ground to do some digging for her.
Speaker 9: The persons that she hired in Nigeria and Dubai couldn't
Speaker 9: find them because there is no such thing. Those Maxims
Speaker 9: never existed at all.
Speaker 2: The model brought a claim against Maxim, Dirk and the photographer,
Speaker 2: accusing them of fraud. By the time the model brought
Speaker 2: the claim, Maxim had already cut ties with Dirk for
Speaker 2: unknown reasons.
Speaker 9: Maxim came to us right away and said we didn't
Speaker 9: have anything to do with it. We didn't allow this,
Speaker 9: we didn't know about it.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's what happens.
Speaker 6: Everybody di dies.
Speaker 2: Maxim denied all allegations and brought a claim again against
Speaker 2: Dirk for being a co conspirator who was quite negligently
Speaker 2: and intentionally responsible for what had happened. The model ended
Speaker 2: up retracting some allegations against the photographer, and all parties
Speaker 2: eventually settled, but Drew still thinks Maxim should have taken
Speaker 2: more responsibility. And I agree.
Speaker 9: We alleged that Maxim had an idea of what was
Speaker 9: going on. Maybe they didn't authorize it and weren't part
Speaker 9: of it, weren't making money off of it, but they
Speaker 9: knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it.
Speaker 2: Herd the Houseworth was a journalist at the New York
Speaker 2: Post who got a tip off about the lawsuit. After
Speaker 2: looking into it, she found the Maxim case wasn't a
Speaker 2: one off.
Speaker 10: Effectively, any woman can be a magazine cover role these
Speaker 10: days if she's wanting to pony up the doll.
Speaker 2: Basically, if you have the money.
Speaker 10: Then you too can be a cover role, and you
Speaker 10: can be on Playboy Sweden or a Maximum South Africa
Speaker 10: or play Woie Australia.
Speaker 2: She gave it a name pay for play. But even
Speaker 2: though Header cause it a scandal, many models still think
Speaker 2: paying for appearances is worth it.
Speaker 10: Maxim and Playboy are huge publications. Then one way to
Speaker 10: get verified that coveted blue check is to be published.
Speaker 10: And obviously once you're verified on Instagram and you have
Speaker 10: a certain follow account, then you can strike deals with
Speaker 10: brands and then you make money. It's how people are
Speaker 10: making their living, you know. It's that whole figure till
Speaker 10: you make it mentality at its core.
Speaker 2: It's clear that the major glamour brands know about pay
Speaker 2: for play.
Speaker 10: Maxim and Playboy are not actually slapping down on this
Speaker 10: at all.
Speaker 4: They're not raining in these rogue actors. They're not cleaning
Speaker 4: up the mess. I went to Playboy and Maxim for comment.
Speaker 4: Maxim never got back to me, but they did give
Speaker 4: a statement in response to Heather's article. Certain so called
Speaker 4: international editions of Maxim are unauthorized and are in no
Speaker 4: way connected to Maxim magazine. Maxim's flagship USA edition does
Speaker 4: not condone any form.
Speaker 2: Of pay for play. Playboy did get back to me
Speaker 2: with a statement. At trips to a company spokesperson, they
Speaker 2: told us the following. While the magazine is still printed
Speaker 2: in several other countries through licensing partnerships, neither Playboy nor
Speaker 2: its affiliates request payment by models. Any sort of request
Speaker 2: for payment by models is not authorized nor endorsed by
Speaker 2: Playboy and its affiliates. This industry feels like a wild West,
Speaker 2: where it appears anything goes, and it seems Luis Gomez's
Speaker 2: whole enterprise relies on that lack of regulation because according
Speaker 2: to the models that we've spoken with, he engages in
Speaker 2: pay for play as well. It's not just the owner
Speaker 2: paying for playmate certificates. He's charging models hundreds, if not
Speaker 2: thousands of pounds to appear in Playboy all the time,
Speaker 2: including loads of the models in the WhatsApp group that
Speaker 2: Emily and Hero were in. Here are some of the
Speaker 2: messages that he sent promoting these so called opportunities.
Speaker 11: We have a special rate of six cond of bounds
Speaker 11: in British waves editorial in Playboy. Huge editorial production for
Speaker 11: Playboy in July each year, have to pay only eight
Speaker 11: hundred dollars. Give me a prize of sixteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: He will just try and get you to pay as
Speaker 1: much money as he can get out of you.
Speaker 11: One thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars. That is the
Speaker 11: cost for an editorial in Playboy maximum FHM. I have
Speaker 11: an editorial in Playboy in next month. It's one thousand,
Speaker 11: nine hundred and eighty dollars each. Three thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 11: and eighty dollars this one.
Speaker 2: Just think people paid that? Yeah, so many girls did.
Speaker 2: They got a front cover, like a four page spread.
Speaker 2: The most I've heard of a model paying Lewise is
Speaker 2: ten thousand pounds for a playmate title. I've spoken to
Speaker 2: so many models who say they paid Lewise going as
Speaker 2: insane ounce of money. Over the years, that money was
Speaker 2: often hard to find. Some of these women were on
Speaker 2: the breadline, out of work, with kids, in debt, and
Speaker 2: so desperate for a break that they even borrowed cash
Speaker 2: of family and friends to pay him. And the model's
Speaker 2: alleged that Luise has one other option. If you're really broke,
Speaker 2: if you won't pay me the money like other girls,
Speaker 2: you've got to pay me in sex. What's more, not
Speaker 2: one model told me that she benefited from those publications.
Speaker 2: My biggest regret was paying the bloke.
Speaker 7: I've been published in someone's picture book that they've made.
Speaker 2: It isn't going to help your career.
Speaker 4: You're wasting your money.
Speaker 7: You should be scouted and put in a magazine because
Speaker 7: you're a good model, not because you've paid for a
Speaker 7: publication that's completely backwards.
Speaker 1: The experience was traumatic, and I've gained nothing from it.
Speaker 2: This honestly makes me feel I went back to Playboy
Speaker 2: with everything we found out about Luis and his pay
Speaker 2: for play practices. They said they stand by their previous statement,
Speaker 2: adding that Playboy expressly prohibits its international publishing licensees from
Speaker 2: accepting content from photographers or models on a pay to
Speaker 2: play basis, But they also added in something new which
Speaker 2: completely blew my mind. Their statement reads, when Playboy has
Speaker 2: become aware that certain photographers have engaged in pay to
Speaker 2: play practices, such as the one it learned of mister
Speaker 2: Gomes in April of twenty nineteen, it has acted without
Speaker 2: hesitation in support of women and directed the licensees to
Speaker 2: blacklist those specific photographers. Playboy had instructed their international additions
Speaker 2: to blacklist Luise in April twenty nineteen. That's more than
Speaker 2: a year before Emily, Fiona and the rest of the
Speaker 2: UK models shot with him. I can't believe this. Luis
Speaker 2: might have been blacklisted by Playboy USA, but he kept going,
Speaker 2: kept using his perceived status as a Playboy photographer to
Speaker 2: bookshoots all over the world, and kept getting his photos
Speaker 2: published in international editions of Playboy. I'm still trying to
Speaker 2: process all of this. When I get a tip, it
Speaker 2: turns out it's not just models who are alleging financial
Speaker 2: abuse at the hands of Luis. A former business partner
Speaker 2: is too. As far as you were aware, did he
Speaker 2: have an official relationship with Playboy at all?
Speaker 3: According to him, who did, he didn't want to give
Speaker 3: me contact. He would never really like get into it.
Speaker 2: Craig Block is an American glamour photographer. He's a big
Speaker 2: guy with glasses and a shock of spiky, dark brown hair.
Speaker 2: He says he first met Luise in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: We would see each other at a couple of events.
Speaker 3: We were talking. We would joke around a little bit.
Speaker 3: So if he saw my work, he'd liked my work,
Speaker 3: maybe we could work together.
Speaker 2: According to Luis's website, Craig became the US director of
Speaker 2: operations for Universe one three seven Studios, Luisa's company. But
Speaker 2: now he tells me he'd like to see Louise behind bars,
Speaker 2: and that's putting it mildly.
Speaker 3: They call him to Venezuela and tapeworm the He's the
Speaker 3: definition of parasite. He's an organism that feeds off of
Speaker 3: others to their detriment.
Speaker 2: Craig said he could record this interview at his place
Speaker 2: of work, which I imagined would be a photography studio. Turns
Speaker 2: out it's actually an incredibly loud factory on Long Island,
Speaker 2: New York.
Speaker 3: Called on one second, Sorry, it's a cert One of
Speaker 3: the fellows in the machine shop had to do something.
Speaker 2: This gives me a clue as to why Craig might
Speaker 2: hate Louise Yes, because despite Craig's slick Instagram, which boasts
Speaker 2: endless pictures of scantily clad models, he is not living
Speaker 2: a glamorous life. He's grinding hard at a factory. Something's
Speaker 2: gone wrong, and Craig says it stems from his decision
Speaker 2: to go into business with Luis in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: He said to me, hey, I feel the universe has
Speaker 3: put us together with good friends. We're supposed to be
Speaker 3: doing something together. Honestly, he really did a great job
Speaker 3: of convincing me that he was actually interested in being friend.
Speaker 2: At the time, Craig was still fairly new to the industry,
Speaker 2: so he was flattered that Louise wanted to work with him.
Speaker 3: The business idea he can Playboy franchise.
Speaker 2: Playboy Costa Rica, to be exact, this was massive, the
Speaker 2: chance to take out an international Playboy license and become
Speaker 2: a publisher, all thanks to Luis Gomers. Craig says. Louise
Speaker 2: told him, if they made it big, they could be
Speaker 2: earning up to three hundred and sixty thousand dollars from
Speaker 2: the franchise alone, and twenty percent of that would go
Speaker 2: straight to Craig. But first they need to invest. Took
Speaker 2: me through the investment that you made. How much did
Speaker 2: he ask for? What was the first payment?
Speaker 3: I saw? It gets embarrassing. First payment was my retirement fine,
Speaker 3: and that was about eighty thousand.
Speaker 2: Dollars, roughly eighty thousand dollars. Unlike many things with Luise,
Speaker 2: things quickly turned sour as.
Speaker 3: Soon as we started the agreement. Apparently they became some
Speaker 3: problem the Playboy and they weren't doing that anymore. So
Speaker 3: who knows, but that d materialize. I'm just taking his
Speaker 3: word from that. This is how it's all done. It's
Speaker 3: a long term strategy.
Speaker 2: Craig says. Louis always had a backup plan and he
Speaker 2: always needed just a bit more cash from Craig to
Speaker 2: make it happen.
Speaker 3: There will always happen to him. You so pop up that.
Speaker 3: He would be like, look, I need fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I need forty thousand dollars so I can buy into this.
Speaker 3: We can buy into that, we can get this, we
Speaker 3: can get that.
Speaker 2: According to Craig, another opportunity to get a Playboy license
Speaker 2: came up. This time it was Playboy Portugal, but there
Speaker 2: were other people interested in the franchise. They'd have to
Speaker 2: move fast.
Speaker 3: Well, he said to me, look, we're going to lose
Speaker 3: Playboy Portugal if I don't have sixty thousand dollars. So
Speaker 3: they're going to give it somebody other. Blah blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah.
Speaker 2: By now, Craig was running dry, but he still had
Speaker 2: faith in Luise and their partnership, so he decided to
Speaker 2: give it one last shot. He took out a loan
Speaker 2: against his own business to pay for the license.
Speaker 3: I said, look, this is a six month loan. I
Speaker 3: either two thousand dollars a week payment on this loan.
Speaker 3: I can't live with that. So you got to tell
Speaker 3: me when I'm going to start getting the money.
Speaker 2: Instead, Craig says he got excuse after excuse.
Speaker 3: He would just say, well, it's not time yet. It
Speaker 3: takes time.
Speaker 2: In case it's not obvious, Craig thinks Luise ran off
Speaker 2: with his money.
Speaker 3: Well, he couldn't send me a red penny, and.
Speaker 2: Now Craig's totally broke.
Speaker 3: I said to him, you've led me dry. It's time
Speaker 3: to leave. I've gone to an attorney that didn't seem
Speaker 3: to do anything. My father a complain online with the FBI.
Speaker 3: I haven't heard anything back. Nobody seems to want to
Speaker 3: deal with it. I gave up on retirement. That's not
Speaker 3: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Craig says he has nothing to show for the estimated
Speaker 2: quarter of a million dollars that he invested in Luise's
Speaker 2: playboy fantasy. When he was giving you this dream, when
Speaker 2: he was telling you that you guys were going to
Speaker 2: be business partners in what sounds like a bit of
Speaker 2: a Glamor Empire. What would that have meant to you
Speaker 2: if that had all come off?
Speaker 3: Oh would have meant I mean, that would have been fantastic.
Speaker 3: He knows this. So for me to be able to
Speaker 3: do something like that where I could travel and not
Speaker 3: have to be changed to a machine chart, that would
Speaker 3: mean the world to me. Yeah, and that's what he exploited.
Speaker 2: Knowing what I know now about Louise being blacklisted by
Speaker 2: Playboy in twenty nineteen, the Glamor Empire, he promised Craig
Speaker 2: would probably never have seen the light of day. Just
Speaker 2: like with models, Louise seems to have used his associations
Speaker 2: with the Glamor brand to extract a lot of money
Speaker 2: from Craig, and it looks like that money may have
Speaker 2: landed in Louise's account before his trip to the UK
Speaker 2: for his so called Playboy Tour, the tour where I've
Speaker 2: heard Luis Gomez used the allure of Playboy to conduct
Speaker 2: photo shoots with around a dozen women, many of whom
Speaker 2: came to me with allegations of abuse. It all seems
Speaker 2: to be connected the money, the magazines, the alleged debut,
Speaker 2: and it all leads back to Luis's exploitation of that
Speaker 2: bunny logo like pulling focus on a camera. Things are
Speaker 2: becoming clearer based on everything I've heard. Luis Gomez is rotten,
Speaker 2: but he also seems to be a symptom of a
Speaker 2: rotten industry. The golden age of adult magazines may be dead,
Speaker 2: but this is still many women's dream. So what's left
Speaker 2: of the glamour industry? It's time for me to venture
Speaker 2: into that world to find out for myself. Coming up
Speaker 2: on the Bonnie Truck. When I thought of this world,
Speaker 2: when I imagined where this podcast would take me, this
Speaker 2: is what I've been looking for this whole time. That
Speaker 2: we found the.
Speaker 3: Glamour Universe seven studios.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, now, oh my god, I actually can't believe
Speaker 7: that we're doing this.
Speaker 2: Thanks to the women who shared their stories with us.
Speaker 2: We contacted Luis Gomes multiple times for comment, but we
Speaker 2: never heard back. He has not been charged with any
Speaker 2: crimes and is presumed innocent under the law. We also
Speaker 2: sought comment from Playboy. They declined our request for an interview,
Speaker 2: but did issue the statement you heard earlier in this episode,
Speaker 2: stating that they asked their licensees to blacklist the photographer
Speaker 2: mentioned in this series and that they prohibit pay to
Speaker 2: play the practice of charging models to appear in magazines.
Speaker 2: The Bonnie Trap is produced by Novel. For more from Novel,
Speaker 2: visit novel dot 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 eb l i E Fly double n.
Speaker 2: This season is produced by Ellen the Biggs and written
Speaker 2: by me Ellie Flynn and l the Biggs. Our assistant
Speaker 2: producer is Amalia Sortland, with additional production from Lee Meyer
Speaker 2: and Saskia Collette. Additional research by Valeria Rocker. The editors
Speaker 2: are Georgia Moody and Austin Mitchell. Our executive producers are
Speaker 2: Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan. Our fact checker is Fendall Fulton.
Speaker 2: Production management from Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design,
Speaker 2: mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander. Music
Speaker 2: supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Eleana Biggs and Max O'Brien. Original
Speaker 2: music composed and performed by Jake Long and additional production
Speaker 2: by Nicholas Alexander, Louisa Gerstein and Daniel Kempson. The series
Speaker 2: artwork was designed by Christina Limcole, Willard Foxton's creative director
Speaker 2: of development. Various women from the WhatsApp group Chat were
Speaker 2: voiced by Boo Miller. Luis Gomes was played by Juan Solari.
Speaker 2: The news clips you heard were from CNN, The Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal, and NBC. The interview clip of drukstine Camp
Speaker 2: was from the podcast Beyond Grit with Robert Young
Speaker 1: Novel