Kim Parker-Barnard Ⓥ🌱 retweetledi
She tried to warn everyone in 2001. The men she named were powerful. What followed ruined her life.💔⚠️
Karen Mulder was one of the most famous models in the world. She worked with Versace, Dior, and Chanel, became an original Victoria’s Secret Angel, and was one of the highest paid models of her time. She was everywhere, admired, successful, and trusted inside the fashion industry.
In October 2001, Mulder appeared on a French talk show and spoke about serious wrongdoing in the modeling world, including assault, abuse, and exploitation. She directly named senior figures. The interview never aired. Reports later claimed the footage was destroyed before the public could see it.
Within hours, she disappeared from public view and was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Paris, where she stayed for months. Her mental health was questioned. Her credibility was torn apart. Her career collapsed. For years, she was portrayed as unstable and unreliable.
The men she accused kept working.
Years later, one of them, Jean-Luc Brunel, was exposed as a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Court records and testimony linked him to an international exploitation network connected to modeling agencies. Many women later accused him. He was arrested in France in 2020 and died in custody in 2022 while awaiting trial.
Another executive Mulder named, Gérald Marie, was later accused by at least fifteen women of assault and abuse. A BBC investigation had previously raised serious concerns about his behavior, yet he remained influential in fashion for years.
Karen Mulder was not protected. She was silenced.
Two decades later, the men she warned about were being investigated, exposed, or dying in jail cells. The truth did not change her fate, but it changed how her words should be remembered.
She was not crazy. She was early.
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