Speaker 1: Novel.
Speaker 2: Hey listeners, I'm your host, Ellie Flymm. Before we get started,
Speaker 2: I just want to let you know that this episode
Speaker 2: contains swearing, explicit sexual language, and claims of sexual abuse.
Speaker 2: It's also a story of female empowerment and camaraderie thanks
Speaker 2: to the women who have shared their stories with us.
Speaker 2: We contacted the photographer mentioned in this podcast multiple times
Speaker 2: for comment, but we never heard back. He has not
Speaker 2: been charged with any crimes and is presumed innocent under
Speaker 2: the law. We also contacted Playboy USA. They state that
Speaker 2: they have asked their licensees to blacklist the photographer mentioned
Speaker 2: in this series and that they prohibit paid to play
Speaker 2: which you'll hear more about later in the series. Our
Speaker 2: research into his association to Playboy and their statement will
Speaker 2: be detailed in episode four of this series.
Speaker 3: But enough of the admin, let's get started.
Speaker 2: We've been sitting manning all the entrances and exits for
Speaker 2: like two hours now, no sign of him or anyone
Speaker 2: that looks like a models of yet. I'm sitting in
Speaker 2: a white SUV parked on the edge of the Nevada Desert.
Speaker 2: The heat is stifling, so we've wound the windows down
Speaker 2: the whole.
Speaker 3: Way a lot of nervous energy.
Speaker 2: To my right is a hotel complex, massive orange buildings
Speaker 2: stretching up to a bright blue sky. To my left
Speaker 2: a long freeway which leads back to the sparkling lights
Speaker 2: of the Las Vegas Strip. But I haven't come to
Speaker 2: Vegas for a holiday. I'm here for a steakhout.
Speaker 3: God, this is fucking stressing. It is really stressful.
Speaker 2: In the back of the car is my producer, Eleanor,
Speaker 2: and next to me in the driver's seat is an
Speaker 2: armed security agent, an ex cop experienced in tracking down
Speaker 2: dangerous criminals. I'm here on the trail of a man
Speaker 2: accused of horrendous behavior who I've been investigating for the
Speaker 2: past four years, a photographer named Luis.
Speaker 4: Do you guys know the vehicles we're looking for?
Speaker 2: So a model that was shooting with Luis yesterday uploaded
Speaker 2: a video of them doing some shooting in some sort
Speaker 2: of white car.
Speaker 3: There's a problem.
Speaker 2: We've been staking out the hotel for eight hours and
Speaker 2: there's been no sign of him anywhere. Oh now, just
Speaker 2: got this horrible anxiety of like what if he left
Speaker 2: last night or early this morning and he's just not
Speaker 2: here anymore.
Speaker 3: Suddenly we spot something Oh my god, that looked like him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Fuck, okay, shit shit shit, shit shit.
Speaker 2: Our agent gets on the phone to another security guard
Speaker 2: who's been monitoring a separate entrance, and jeep four by
Speaker 2: just came to the back.
Speaker 5: Looks like a wagon. Ear take a look at the
Speaker 5: mail in it. It's a male.
Speaker 2: Subject wearing a ball cap.
Speaker 5: Windows are down.
Speaker 3: We start to move, letting our third and final agent though.
Speaker 1: Hey start looking for a looks like a jeep.
Speaker 2: Not a jeep Cherokee, but an actual jeep.
Speaker 3: The jeep comes into vision again.
Speaker 4: Okay, I've got it up front.
Speaker 2: We slip into the traffic behind the car and follow
Speaker 2: it as it weaves down a busy boulevard.
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys, get up front and copy this plate.
Speaker 5: Get a camera out, Get a camera out.
Speaker 3: The jeep makes a sudden turn. It's picking up speed.
Speaker 2: This guy I think he does. We're followeeno. The jeep's
Speaker 2: heading north, away from the strip, the casinos and the
Speaker 2: hotel complex. He's going towards the desert with red canyons
Speaker 2: stretching out in all directions.
Speaker 3: As we slip onto a dirt road, we're moving closer.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. As we gain on him, He's winding and weaving,
Speaker 2: trying to shake us.
Speaker 3: This is so intense. We get ready to face him.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna pull right at Barney.
Speaker 2: I can't believe that I might finally be coming face
Speaker 2: to face with the man I've been after since twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Suddenly the jeep speed drops. We lurched the side after him,
Speaker 2: slamming on the brakes.
Speaker 4: Let's see, he's gonna all over.
Speaker 3: It all comes down to this.
Speaker 2: The story of how I came to be chasing that
Speaker 2: jeep through the Nevada Desert began in the summer of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. What started as an investigation into one man
Speaker 2: ended up going much much deeper.
Speaker 3: It became a.
Speaker 2: Journey into the fringes of the sex industry, a world
Speaker 2: full of smoke and mirrors where exploitation is rife. Unraveling
Speaker 2: this story has taken years and has sent me around
Speaker 2: the world as I uncovered a rotten industry with scams
Speaker 2: more outlandish than I ever thought possible, a world where dreams.
Speaker 3: Are twisted into nightmares.
Speaker 2: But I'd never have taken on this mission if it
Speaker 2: weren't for a group of around a dozen brave women
Speaker 2: who came together first to share their allegations of abuse.
Speaker 2: I'm Ellie Flynn and from the team at Novel. This
Speaker 2: is the Bunny Trap, Episode one the group chat.
Speaker 3: It all began with an email.
Speaker 2: I'm an investigative journalist and I've dug into a lot
Speaker 2: of different stories over the years, but mostly my work's
Speaker 2: about women and the abuses and injustices they face. A
Speaker 2: fair bit of that has taken me into the sex industry,
Speaker 2: where experiences of abuse are depressingly common. I get a
Speaker 2: lot of emails tipping me off about news stories, and
Speaker 2: most of the time they don't lead anywhere. But every
Speaker 2: now and then you get a tip that catches your attention.
Speaker 3: It's like you get a.
Speaker 2: Gut feeling that this could be something big, and this
Speaker 2: email was one of them. It was addressed to me
Speaker 2: and the news desks of twelve international newspapers. The subject
Speaker 2: line read sexually abused by Playboy photographer. The writers were
Speaker 2: a group of models on a mission to expose the
Speaker 2: alleged behavior of a glamour photographer named Luis Gomes. If
Speaker 2: you grew up in the UK like me, you probably
Speaker 2: know what I mean by the glamour industry. It's basically
Speaker 2: soft porn, adult modeling, anything from lingerie and bikinis to
Speaker 2: nude centerfold spreads. It used to be all about magazines,
Speaker 2: but now it's mainly moved online. In a London recording studio,
Speaker 2: I'm meeting one of the models behind that email.
Speaker 4: I love your bag. It's fake?
Speaker 3: Oh is it so good?
Speaker 4: My real bags? Because I just trashed them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously we're not here to talk about her bag.
Speaker 2: We're here to talk about Luis Gomes, who, I want
Speaker 2: to be clear, is the photographer based in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 2: There are other photographers named Luis Gomes around the world,
Speaker 2: but I'm not talking about them.
Speaker 3: What do you want me to call you?
Speaker 4: Emily's fine?
Speaker 3: Is that fine? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Emily's in her late twenties. We're not using her last
Speaker 2: name because it's risky for glammor models to reveal their
Speaker 2: real identities online, so in her work she goes by
Speaker 2: a pseudonym, Emily Ray. On Instagram, Emily's your quintessential modern
Speaker 2: day glamor model. Her profile is littered with glamorous photos
Speaker 2: of her in lingerie or latex costumes. But the first
Speaker 2: thing Emily wants me to know is that she's much
Speaker 2: more than her sex bond persona.
Speaker 1: I am very goofy. I am so goofy. I'm a
Speaker 1: bit of a nerd. I am the most squishy emotional person.
Speaker 1: I cry at the Andrex advert with the puppies. I
Speaker 1: love musical theater. I'm just a regular person and people
Speaker 1: do forget actually that we.
Speaker 4: Are real people. I'm a big family.
Speaker 2: Emily grew up in a market town in the southeast
Speaker 2: of England with her mum, dad and brother, and it
Speaker 2: was there, in her completely normal, far from glamorous home
Speaker 2: that she first became interested in glamor modeling. In the
Speaker 2: early noughties, when Emily was around eleven years old, she
Speaker 2: saw something in her older brother's bedroom.
Speaker 1: This massive poster of this blonde girl dressed in an
Speaker 1: army outfit and she had these tiny little shorts on,
Speaker 1: fake bullets, blonde hair, big eyelashes, and these massive, massive boobs.
Speaker 2: She'd creep into her brother's room when he was out
Speaker 2: with his mates just to stare at this poster. To
Speaker 2: little Emily, who was skinny and a bit of a tomboy,
Speaker 2: the model in the poster represented everything she longed to be,
Speaker 2: but it was about much more than just her massive,
Speaker 2: massive boobs.
Speaker 1: She looks so sexy and happy and like she looked
Speaker 1: like a strong, independent female.
Speaker 3: Like her confidence. That's what Emily wanted the most.
Speaker 2: Let me take you back to Britain in the early
Speaker 2: noughties when I was growing up. Craig David and the
Speaker 2: Sugar Babes are on the radio, the Olsen Twins are
Speaker 2: on TV, and glamour magazines are everywhere. I remember standing
Speaker 2: outside the newsagents with my mates, all of us sniggering
Speaker 2: as we passed around copies of FHM, feeling my cheeks
Speaker 2: go bright red as we leave through page after page
Speaker 2: of gorgeous women in skimpy bikinis. It felt funny and embarrassing,
Speaker 2: but also we secretly aspired to be like those girls.
Speaker 2: There was just something about the models in those days.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just their looks, hour glass figures, perfect teeth
Speaker 2: and big boobs.
Speaker 3: It was something else.
Speaker 2: They had a kind of relatability that didn't exist on
Speaker 2: high fashion catwalks. Glamour girls were cheeky, they had a
Speaker 2: sense of humor. They seemed like they'd be fun to
Speaker 2: hang out with, which, of course, for young girls like Emily,
Speaker 2: was the point.
Speaker 1: I just loved the look, and then that sort of
Speaker 1: started a I'd love to be a glamor model, but
Speaker 1: I don't look like that.
Speaker 3: So Emily gave up on the dream.
Speaker 2: She finished school, worked a series of jobs, and got
Speaker 2: a steady boyfriend. But one day in twenty eighteen, her
Speaker 2: boyfriend introduced her to OnlyFans. OnlyFans burst onto the scene
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen. It's an online platform, but unlike Instagram
Speaker 2: and Facebook, its subscription model means followers have to pay
Speaker 2: to see your posts. It also allows explicit content for
Speaker 2: the sex industry, it changed everything. It blurred the lines
Speaker 2: between influencing glamor modeling and sex work and opened the
Speaker 2: doors to anyone who wanted to post explicit content for cash.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I used to take pictures of myself
Speaker 1: from lingerie all the time. I had two years worth
Speaker 1: of photos on my camera roll.
Speaker 4: So I was like, kil what have I got to lose?
Speaker 2: She unlocked her phone and started browsing for the perfect
Speaker 2: first post.
Speaker 1: I think it was a thirty second video of me
Speaker 1: pulling shorts over my bum. You can just hear the
Speaker 1: as the jeans go up open my bum and this
Speaker 1: little jiggle, and I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 4: I was like, that will be the first one.
Speaker 1: So I uploaded and I started advertising it on my
Speaker 1: social media and it just took off.
Speaker 2: To Emily's surprise, dozens of people started subscribing to her
Speaker 2: only Fans account, and then hundreds.
Speaker 3: She was kind of a hit, and with each new
Speaker 3: fan she got paid.
Speaker 1: And then you go on your balanced and you keep
Speaker 1: refreshing it, and it's just going up and up and
Speaker 1: up and up.
Speaker 2: Emily says that in her first twenty four hours on
Speaker 2: the site, she made about two grand and.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, if I can keep this
Speaker 1: up for six months, I'll quit my job.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: Soon OnlyFans was her full time job, led by her
Speaker 2: online autery.
Speaker 3: Emily Ray, You've.
Speaker 1: Got to get out of bed and you've got to
Speaker 1: create the content otherwise you're not going to get paid.
Speaker 1: So there was a bit of anxiety, but nice to
Speaker 1: know that your sort of destinies in your hands.
Speaker 4: It's not somebody else's decision to make. I had the
Speaker 4: free run of the world. It was lovely.
Speaker 2: A typical post might be a photo of Emily Ray
Speaker 2: in a lingeriser, something like a lace balconet bra with
Speaker 2: a thong and suspenders. She's usually on her bed with
Speaker 2: a sultry half smile or pout, a tattoo of a
Speaker 2: rose winding around her waist. Her captions are short, snappy,
Speaker 2: and often flirty, like the one of her looking sunkissed
Speaker 2: on holiday that says Pamela t Anderson, she ooses confidence
Speaker 2: and sex appeal. Emily Ray was strong and tough, sexually empowered.
Speaker 2: She didn't take any shit, and her fans ate it up.
Speaker 2: But the Emily Ray persona was also a way for
Speaker 2: the real Emily to come to terms with a difficult past.
Speaker 1: I suffered trauma, a sexual abuse thing when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: so that's always been in my mind. That's always been
Speaker 1: a big, big part of me, but I didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about it for a long time. I found it
Speaker 1: quite liberating doing only Fans because I regained control of
Speaker 1: my body and I was getting almost like reparations I
Speaker 1: call it from men.
Speaker 4: Not that it was all men that hurt me.
Speaker 1: But it just felt like it was nice to get
Speaker 1: that control back and have control over my images and
Speaker 1: my body, and I think that helped me cope.
Speaker 2: When Emily started doing OnlyFans, it didn't take long for
Speaker 2: her to go all in. What photos and videos did
Speaker 2: you post on OnlyFans when you first started cool?
Speaker 1: I went straight into it, Honestly, I did not hold back,
Speaker 1: putting everything out there from day dot.
Speaker 2: Overnight, her boyfriend became her own personal photographer.
Speaker 4: If I was going for a shower, he would literally
Speaker 4: be there by the door.
Speaker 1: I'm like, can you oh wait, I just want five minutes,
Speaker 1: five minutes of peace to wash my hair.
Speaker 2: They quickly graduated to filming sex scenes together. It's not
Speaker 2: something everyone on OnlyFans does, but it is pretty common.
Speaker 4: There was filming couple stuff. Extreme levels.
Speaker 2: Levels are a crucial concept in the glamour world. All
Speaker 2: models know the different levels because they're about boundaries about
Speaker 2: how much of your body you're willing to expose.
Speaker 1: With glamour, you can do lingerie topless implied nude, which
Speaker 1: is where you would essentially, for example, have your legs open,
Speaker 1: but you have your hand in front of your genitals,
Speaker 1: so you're fully nude but there's nothing on show. You've
Speaker 1: got obviously full nude, and then you've got explicit, which
Speaker 1: is when you move towards sort of like the porn.
Speaker 2: Industry, but Here's another important thing about levels. They can
Speaker 2: change depending on who's behind the camera. Just because Emily
Speaker 2: had high levels and was comfortable filming open leg herself,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that she'd be comfortable with anyone else
Speaker 2: filming her that way. But with her boyfriend behind the camera,
Speaker 2: Emily was happy, and soon she was earning up to
Speaker 2: eight grand a month. She did so well that she
Speaker 2: bought a house with her earnings. In twenty twenty, COVID
Speaker 2: hit and after an early boom on OnlyFans, Emily's incomes
Speaker 2: started to drop and I.
Speaker 1: Was starting stressing about money because of my mortgage payments.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got used to living a lifestyle.
Speaker 2: All that forward momentum was gone. She wondered if this
Speaker 2: was the end of her financial freedom and also the
Speaker 2: end of the modeling career that she dreamed about all
Speaker 2: her life. But then she caught a photographer's attention, who
Speaker 2: said he shot for one of the most iconic glamour
Speaker 2: brands in the world, Playboy magazine, and that he wanted
Speaker 2: to make her a star. In the spring of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: when the world was under lockdown and Emily was desperate
Speaker 2: for opportunities, a photographer named Luis Gomez messaged her he
Speaker 2: was coming to the UK as soon as the board
Speaker 2: has opened up and he wanted to shoot with her.
Speaker 3: Emily had heard of Luis.
Speaker 1: I thought he was an amazing photographer. I'd always admired
Speaker 1: his work.
Speaker 2: He's from Venezuela but had been based in the United
Speaker 2: States for years. He did photoshoots all over the world,
Speaker 2: had forty five thousand Instagram followers and was a big
Speaker 2: deal in the industry. Instagram is, without a doubt, the
Speaker 2: foundation of a successful career in glamour. It's where photographers
Speaker 2: and models find each other, where everyone builds their reputation.
Speaker 2: Luisa's profile was full of photos he'd taken of women
Speaker 2: on Playboy covers.
Speaker 3: And how big a deal was Playboy to you at
Speaker 3: the time.
Speaker 1: It's just the name, I think, the legacy. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody loves Playboy. Everybody knows Playboy. It's universal. It just
Speaker 1: sort of became a little dream that I didn't really
Speaker 1: know that i'd had, because I still love Playboy. Just
Speaker 1: have the necklace, the watch, the bedding all of us
Speaker 1: did remember.
Speaker 3: I remember one of my friends had it as a wallpaper.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, insane as it seems now there was once
Speaker 2: a time where preteen girls in the UK loved Playboy.
Speaker 2: The bunny logo was a staple of Naughty's Fashion and
Speaker 2: The Girls next Door. The reality TV program showing life
Speaker 2: inside the Playboy Mansion ran for season after season.
Speaker 3: It had this very.
Speaker 2: Catchy theme tune about candy that invite you into the
Speaker 2: world of Playboy.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Playboy Mansion.
Speaker 3: Come on to my house and the house I'm gone,
Speaker 3: give me.
Speaker 4: Good morning.
Speaker 2: I could probably have told you the names of more
Speaker 2: people living in the Playboy Mansion than I could have
Speaker 2: world leaders at the time. But Playboys and Law was
Speaker 2: about more than cute March and Hugh Hefner. It was
Speaker 2: about fame, beauty, and most of all, power. For Emily,
Speaker 2: it wasn't just about clout or fulfilling a childhood fantasy.
Speaker 2: She also saw being published in Playboy as a huge
Speaker 2: business opportunity. This was a chance to set herself apart
Speaker 2: from all the other thousands of models on Instagram and OnlyFans.
Speaker 2: Maybe this could lead to a ton of new followers.
Speaker 2: Maybe big brands would want to work with her. I mean,
Speaker 2: this could be huge. Luis could be the one to
Speaker 2: help her get there. But if she wanted him, a
Speaker 2: Playboy photographer, to take her photos, she'd have to pay
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: The rates to shoot with him were sort of like
Speaker 1: three thousand pounds up if you wanted to pay for it.
Speaker 2: This might sound weird. Louise asked Emily to shoot. Why
Speaker 2: is she paying? But actually it's pretty common for models
Speaker 2: to pay photographers. It's like an actor paying for a
Speaker 2: new headshot. But his rates were too expensive.
Speaker 4: I said I can't. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't have any spare money. It's all tied up
Speaker 1: in my new house. And then he said, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1: We'll give you a golden ticket. We give out golden tickets.
Speaker 2: A golden ticket the chance to shoot with Luis Gomez
Speaker 2: world class photos that might just get published in Playboy,
Speaker 2: all for free.
Speaker 1: I thought it was this Charlie the chocolate factory. So yeah,
Speaker 1: got my golden ticket and we booked a shoot date.
Speaker 2: On August eighth, twenty twenty, a swelteringly hot summer day.
Speaker 2: Emily arrives at the venue Louise has chosen for the shoot.
Speaker 2: It's an air in a victorian townhouse in London. It's
Speaker 2: taken Emily a couple of hours to get here from
Speaker 2: the town where she lives. She's going to stay in
Speaker 2: a hotel nearby and is lugging a suitcase of outfit
Speaker 2: options and accessories. Her friend's going to join her, because
Speaker 2: even with a well known photographer, it's best to take
Speaker 2: someone with you, especially for a first shoot. But her
Speaker 2: friend's running late, so for now Emily's alone and it's
Speaker 2: not quite the glamorous location she expected.
Speaker 1: There were bin bags everywhere, like nappy bags, all piled
Speaker 1: up on the porch, and I was like, surely I'm
Speaker 1: at the wrong place. Rang the buzzer, rang the buzzer,
Speaker 1: rang the buzzer.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 3: Just when Emily's wondering if she should leave, Luise.
Speaker 1: Comes flying down the stairs, absolutely driven with sweat and
Speaker 1: was like hello. It was like, Hi, he's five for eight,
Speaker 1: he's quite a strong build, dark brown hair, He's got
Speaker 1: dark olive skin, brown eyes.
Speaker 2: Louisa's dre all in black with a cap on backwards
Speaker 2: and a Star Wars T shirt. He's wearing knee length
Speaker 2: cargo shorts with pulled up socks and black lace up boots.
Speaker 2: Luise leaves Emily into the building and up a narrow
Speaker 2: spiral staircase. It opens up onto a landing with two bedrooms,
Speaker 2: each with a small balcony overlooking tiny terraced gardens below.
Speaker 2: The balcony doors are open, allowing some of the stifling
Speaker 2: heat to escape. They walk together up to the top floor,
Speaker 2: into a small kitchen area and sit down to talk.
Speaker 1: He was asking me why I wanted to be in Playboy,
Speaker 1: how long I've wanted to be in it. What are
Speaker 1: my goals and expectations for shooting? Like, what did I
Speaker 1: want to do going forward?
Speaker 2: Emily says she's doing this for the exposure, for the
Speaker 2: chance to build her portfolio and set herself apart from
Speaker 2: the crowd, and she explains her levels for the shoot.
Speaker 2: She's happy to shoot clothed, implied, and nude. She wants
Speaker 2: to get a range of beautiful images. Luise tells her
Speaker 2: he can also shoot some more X rated content for her.
Speaker 2: Emily's open to the idea. She shoots with sex toys
Speaker 2: for her OnlyFans, so she has a couple in her bag.
Speaker 1: I think I literally took like one dildo and a
Speaker 1: vibrator and that was it. It wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: like a crazy shoot. I just thought, oh, if you've
Speaker 1: got time at the end, then could get some cool shots,
Speaker 1: like proper four K shots.
Speaker 3: High levels.
Speaker 2: Sure, But as far as Emily's concerned, Luis is a
Speaker 2: photographer that she can trust.
Speaker 3: I mean, he says, he.
Speaker 2: Works with Playboy, he should be the best of the best.
Speaker 2: But then Luise says something that puts her on edge.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm giving you this for free because you've
Speaker 1: got a golden ticket, so you know you're gonna stay
Speaker 1: with me here tonight.
Speaker 4: This was the arrangement.
Speaker 1: You have a free photo shoot, and you spend the
Speaker 1: night with me, and I'll take you to the top.
Speaker 1: I'll make you a star. I said, no, what do
Speaker 1: you mean arrangement? Why would I be staying the night.
Speaker 1: I'm at a photo shoot. And at that moment, my heart
Speaker 1: literally sank, my stomach flipped. I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: now it's clear to me what he wants from this shoot.
Speaker 4: Do I get up and leave? Do I just get
Speaker 4: my stuff and go?
Speaker 3: Just then Emily's friend arrives.
Speaker 4: I said I need to go and let my friend in.
Speaker 1: So I just like jumped out from the table and
Speaker 1: ran downstairs and I opened the door, and I was like, oh.
Speaker 4: My god, Oh my god, he thinks I'm going to
Speaker 4: sleep with him.
Speaker 3: And she was like, what was like, I don't.
Speaker 4: Know what to do?
Speaker 2: She said, you want to just go leaving with me
Speaker 2: and passing up the biggest opportunity of her career so far.
Speaker 2: Emily knows she might not get another chance. This silent
Speaker 2: debate is something I know many women will relate to.
Speaker 2: It's that internal voice quickly rattling through the possible outcomes
Speaker 2: of a situation you're not feeling one hundred percent comfortable with.
Speaker 2: It's keeping a smile on your face as you scan
Speaker 2: the room for exits while simultaneously telling yourself that you're
Speaker 2: probably overreacting. It's wanting or needing something so badly that
Speaker 2: you silence the alarm bells sounding in your chest.
Speaker 4: And I said, no, you're here.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: I can hold my own I can look after myself.
Speaker 4: We've come all this way.
Speaker 1: We'll see how it goes, and if he crosses the
Speaker 1: line again, I'll get my stuff and we'll leave.
Speaker 2: Emily takes a deep breath, steals herself and makes her
Speaker 2: way back inside. Upstairs, in a bedroom with high ceilings,
Speaker 2: a four poster bed and windows draped with long white curtains.
Speaker 2: Emily's posing in her first outfit, a short poker dot
Speaker 2: dress and black patent hills.
Speaker 1: I look like a housewife. I was comfortable doing that.
Speaker 1: We had music on. It was a bit more of
Speaker 1: a chilled vibe.
Speaker 2: Luise gets into all sorts of positions to capture her
Speaker 2: best angles. He's going to a lot of effort. He's
Speaker 2: even wearing knee pads. Emily's warming up to the camera
Speaker 2: and starting to enjoy herself. After another quick outfit change
Speaker 2: and some more lifestyle shots, it's time for lingerie. This
Speaker 2: could end up in Playboy after all. Emily's friend decides
Speaker 2: to give her some privacy.
Speaker 1: She was like, Oh, I don't want to sort of
Speaker 1: impose because sometimes obviously you can do some risk a stuff.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh yeah, I'll just call you if
Speaker 1: I need you.
Speaker 2: Emily and Luis are now alone. Emily poses by the
Speaker 2: wall in a lazy black lingerie set. She's in her element.
Speaker 2: She loves shooting in lingerie. Then something strange happens. Luise
Speaker 2: puts down his camera and picks up his guitar.
Speaker 1: He was playing his own music in the background, so
Speaker 1: in the middle of the shoot he'd stop and he'd
Speaker 1: get out of his guitar and he'd start playing chords
Speaker 1: and playing along to music.
Speaker 2: But then it shifts from weird to worse. Just a
Speaker 2: heads up. What Emily describes next might be distressing.
Speaker 1: It was lingerie, and then it was lingerie with my
Speaker 1: brass strapped down, and then it was lingerie with my
Speaker 1: off and then.
Speaker 4: It was here, here's an ice cube.
Speaker 1: Put it in your mouth, suck it, put it on
Speaker 1: your nipples, you know, like, play with it. Things kind
Speaker 1: of sort of started escalating to pornographic, and I just thought,
Speaker 1: what is going on?
Speaker 2: Emily racks her brain, thinking back to Luis's shots that
Speaker 2: she'd seen on the front cover of Playboy magazines, gorgeous
Speaker 2: girls on exostic beaches and tiny bikinis looking tall, strong, sexy,
Speaker 2: hair flowing in the breeze, amazing makeup, flattering angles, not
Speaker 2: ice cubes in a shitty airbnb. But then again, maybe
Speaker 2: it's fine. After all, Playboy editorials are pretty sexy. Maybe
Speaker 2: this is just what Playboy models do.
Speaker 4: Okay, we'll just go with it for now.
Speaker 1: Like he's far away, he's not near me kind of thing,
Speaker 1: so I could deal with that.
Speaker 3: But then Louise moves closer.
Speaker 1: He would physically come over and grab your hand and
Speaker 1: put it somewhere, and he was very aggressive and pushy,
Speaker 1: and he gets very in your space and I just
Speaker 1: sort of just went with it because you don't really
Speaker 1: know what to do. I was just anxious and eager
Speaker 1: for it to be over with.
Speaker 2: Louise should know that he's not supposed to touch her,
Speaker 2: but by now this shoot isn't feeling very professional at all.
Speaker 2: Emily had been so excited for a glamorous sheet with
Speaker 2: a photographer who had the power to make her name,
Speaker 2: but it feels like he's hell bent on getting to
Speaker 2: the OnlyFans content.
Speaker 1: He wanted me fully nude with just heels on, like
Speaker 1: on the bed. He was asking me to spread my legs.
Speaker 1: Then he went in my suitcase and took out one
Speaker 1: of my toys and sort of like throw at me
Speaker 1: and was telling me what to.
Speaker 2: Do with it. Emily wants to push back to focus
Speaker 2: on the glamour shots, but her resolver is worn down,
Speaker 2: so she does as she's told.
Speaker 1: The way he was behind the camera, he's a very
Speaker 1: strong presence. He's very old, do this, do that, do this,
Speaker 1: and then it was right now, put it in you,
Speaker 1: and then it was just going on and on and on.
Speaker 1: I didn't mind having toys and being seductive or like
Speaker 1: putting a toy in my mouth. It's not like I'd
Speaker 1: never done open leg, but the way he made me
Speaker 1: feel was very uncomfortable and dirty and horrible.
Speaker 2: Emily thinks that if she stops the shoot now, she'll
Speaker 2: blow the whole thing and ruin her chance to get
Speaker 2: into Playboy.
Speaker 1: So she rationalizes, I'll just do it and get out.
Speaker 1: I remember just looking up at the ceiling. I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking this is too much.
Speaker 3: Emily notices that the room has become eerily quiet.
Speaker 1: He stopped clicking. Yeah, he'd switched his camera from shoot
Speaker 1: to film.
Speaker 2: According to Emily, Luis has stopped taking photos. Now he's
Speaker 2: taking videos. She never agreed to this, and he must have.
Speaker 1: Been doing this for a good five minutes before I'd realized.
Speaker 1: And he was getting closer and closer and closer to
Speaker 1: me with this camera between my legs. His camera lens
Speaker 1: was probably about two inches away from me. It was
Speaker 1: basically inside me at one point. And then he was
Speaker 1: asking to perform oral sex on him for the camera,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, I'm not doing things like that.
Speaker 1: He was just so pushy and persistent, and I thought,
Speaker 1: when is he going to give up? I said no,
Speaker 1: like no literally means no. Emily gets up and starts
Speaker 1: putting on her clothes. She's not thinking about stardom anymore.
Speaker 1: The thing that two hours ago she'd have done anything
Speaker 1: to achieve, she no longer wants it, not if this
Speaker 1: is the cost.
Speaker 2: She doesn't care about anything except getting out of that room.
Speaker 3: What was his proximity to you? Where was he standing?
Speaker 1: He was very close in my breathing space. He kissed
Speaker 1: me and he was so sweaty, and he kept going
Speaker 1: for my mouth and I had to turn my head
Speaker 1: and he put his hands like round my waist, and
Speaker 1: that was enough to make me feel disgusting. He was
Speaker 1: always touching my lower back or trying to touch my bum.
Speaker 1: He was like, nobody has to know. I said no
Speaker 1: and not doing that that I've told you when I
Speaker 1: got here. That's not the arrangement. He kept saying, But
Speaker 1: you're staying here, You're staying here.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not, and just got my stuff and I
Speaker 4: just left with my friend.
Speaker 3: Which you think would have happened if your friend wasn't there.
Speaker 1: God do you know what, I don't even want to
Speaker 1: think about it. That's such a hard thing to think about.
Speaker 1: I had a lucky escape, a really lucky escape. I
Speaker 1: was like, I need to get back to my hotel
Speaker 1: and I need to shower.
Speaker 4: I've never felt so dirty.
Speaker 1: I felt gross, I felt sweaty, I felt degraded. I
Speaker 1: remember just scrubbing my skin in the shower. It's like
Speaker 1: there's things under your skin. It's just that you can't
Speaker 1: get something off you. Literally, somebody's got under your skin.
Speaker 1: You can't get it out.
Speaker 2: In the following days, Emily couldn't stop thinking about what
Speaker 2: happened to her. It all felt somehow planned. She had
Speaker 2: an instinct that she might not be the first model
Speaker 2: he'd felt this way after a photo shoot with Luis Gomes.
Speaker 1: I think I put out a post on my Instagram
Speaker 1: story actually to see if anybody had had a bad
Speaker 1: experience with a photographer, and I didn't name anybody, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people that clicked yes sent me a
Speaker 1: direct message straight away saying is this about Louis Gomas.
Speaker 2: And suddenly Emily wasn't alone. She was one of around
Speaker 2: a dozen pissed off models, all of the voice notes
Speaker 2: you're about to hear are the words of real women,
Speaker 2: but to protect their identities, some have been voiced by actors.
Speaker 2: I couldn't really get out that he had the door locked,
Speaker 2: he had the key.
Speaker 4: I was the only person.
Speaker 3: There scaring models.
Speaker 1: He's intimidating them, preying on them, sexually harassing them.
Speaker 3: He was fucking horrible.
Speaker 2: He's a level pusher and a fucking dirty perve.
Speaker 1: I'm a really like experienced model and I was modeling
Speaker 1: for like three years before I shot with Louise, but
Speaker 1: even he made me uncomfortable. He's like the Harvey weinscene
Speaker 1: of the photography industry.
Speaker 4: He's disgusting.
Speaker 2: To Emily, it was clear that what she'd experienced with
Speaker 2: Louise hadn't been a one off.
Speaker 4: He's just spinning the web for you to get.
Speaker 1: Trapped in it. Predatorish, that's the only word for it.
Speaker 1: He is literally a predator.
Speaker 2: It felt like these shoots weren't about the pictures or Playboy.
Speaker 2: It felt like they were an opportunity to abuse models
Speaker 2: behind closed doors.
Speaker 4: We thought, we can't let this happen again.
Speaker 3: The women organized.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a group chat together of girls that have
Speaker 1: all had a really bad experience.
Speaker 2: So yeah, WhatsApp group for all the models who claimed
Speaker 2: they'd been abused by Louise. It would be a place
Speaker 2: to share experiences, support each other, and come up with
Speaker 2: a plan to make sure that no other model would
Speaker 2: shoot with Louise without hearing their allegations. First, they'd all
Speaker 2: realized one thing Luis was hiding behind his self proclaimed
Speaker 2: statis as a playboy photographer.
Speaker 3: That's what had got them all in the room.
Speaker 2: So when it came to choosing a name for the
Speaker 2: group chat, well that was only one choice.
Speaker 1: Fuck playboy coming up on the bunny trap?
Speaker 3: Why do I start relying?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's way darker and white, deeper than
Speaker 4: I could every imagine.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be cool, and I wanted to be
Speaker 2: in the magazine, and I wanted to be in the limelight.
Speaker 1: He said, for five thousand pounds, I could be the
Speaker 1: playboy playmame.
Speaker 5: If they're asking you for money, it's a scam because
Speaker 5: why do you have to pay to be a model.
Speaker 3: The whole industry has just changed. I was stupid in
Speaker 3: naives because I didn't know, like, what the fuck is mam?
Speaker 5: Right, He's everywhere and has been everywhere ladies.
Speaker 3: I got it all.
Speaker 4: I got it all. It's not just me.
Speaker 5: We're an army and perison to him.
Speaker 2: Thanks to the women who shared their stories with us.
Speaker 2: We contacted Luis Gomez 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 USA. They declined our request for
Speaker 2: an interview, but you can hear their statement later in
Speaker 2: the series. The Bonnie Trap is produced by Novel. For
Speaker 2: more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. The show is
Speaker 2: hosted by me Ellie Flynn. You can find me on
Speaker 2: social media by searching my name that's eb l i
Speaker 2: e fy double n. This season is produced by Eleanor
Speaker 2: Biggs and written by me Ellie Flynn and Eleen the Biggs.
Speaker 2: Our assistant producer is Amla Sortland, with additional production from
Speaker 2: Lee Meyer and Saskia Collette. Additional research by Valeria Rocker.
Speaker 2: The editors are Georgia Moody and Austin Mitchell. Our executive
Speaker 2: producers are Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan. Our fat checker
Speaker 2: is Fendall Fulton. Production management from Scherie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 2: Sound design, mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander,
Speaker 2: Music supervision by Nicholas Alexander, Eleana Biggs and Max O'Brien.
Speaker 2: Original music composed and performed by Jake Long, and additional
Speaker 2: production by Nicholas Alexander, Louisa Gerstein and Daniel Kempson. The
Speaker 2: series artwork was designed by Christina Limcole, Willard Foxton's creative
Speaker 2: director of development. Various women from the group Chat were
Speaker 2: voiced by Boo Miller. The theme Team You Heard was
Speaker 2: from the TV series The Girls next Door, produced by
Speaker 2: Fox Television Studios, Alta Loma Entertainment and Prometheus Entertainment, and
Speaker 2: distributed by E
Speaker 1: Novel