After a three-month nightmare in an Indonesian jail following a controversial ecstasy bust, all model Michelle Leslie wanted to do was “get her life back”.
The model who one graced the catwalks of New York, Hong Kong and Singapore hoped to put the blackest period of her young life behind her and get back to the thing she does best, modelling.
But it hasn’t turned out that way. Friends have revealed the 25-year-old has hit rock-bottom and spends her time moping around her house in Sydney’s Rose Bay, emotionally scarred by her ordeal and stung by criticism.
“People have been saying such horrible things about me and it hurts,” Leslie told The Sunday Age in an exclusive interview.
“It hurts most when I see how much it hurts my family and friends. But I can’t let all the nasty things that have been said get to me. I have to think of all the positive things and try to go forward.”
Leslie, who was caught by Indonesian police with two ecstasy tablets in her Gucci handbag in Bali, is being treated as a pariah by the industry that brought her fame on the world’s catwalks.
A much trumpeted return at Australian Fashion Week next month has fizzled, after at least one high-profile designer dumped her.
Her agency, ChicManagement, sacked her as soon as she arrived home from a three-month stint in an Indonesian jail after being arrested last August outside a dance party at Kuta Beach. The former AntzPantz covergirl hasn’t had a modelling job since.
Labels such as “drug dealer” and “fake Muslim” have stuck.
Leslie shares a home with long-term boyfriend Scott Sutton, a member of the Sutton family that runs Holden car dealerships in Sydney. Friends says she spends her days with only her Staffordshire terrier, Vegas, for company.
She was especially stung last week by stories describing her as a “drug dealer” on her return from a trip to Cambodia to help raise money for a children’s char-
ity. Accompanied by her father, Albert, she met some of the 4000 orphans and street children rescued by the charity, Krousar Thmey, which is sponsored by Sydney photo-journalist Peter Carrette, actor Jack Thompson and the king of Cambodia.
The story and photos from Leslie’s “life-altering” trip will appear in New Idea tomorrow, but Leslie says she was not paid by the magazine, which instead donated money to the charity.
To the cynics who say she is just trying to rehabilitate her career, Leslie says: “Going away to Cambodia was about doing positive things with my life.
My family has sponsored World Vision children my whole life and my parents brought two of my cousins out from the Philippines and sent them to school.”
It is six months since she donned a white burqa for one of her Indonesian court appearances, sparking accusations that she was a “fake Muslim”.
She apologised later for causing “any offence”, saying it was an “extreme situation”, but won’t be drawn on whether she still follows Islam. “I’m choosing not to discuss religion,” she says.
Neither will she talk about what happened in Bali before she was arrested while travelling in a car with a well-connected group including the son of an Indonesian Government minister. At the time she claimed the ecstasy tablets were placed in her bag by someone else. But her friend and media adviser, cameraman Sean Mulcahy, explains her reluctance to talk by revealing the death threats she received in jail.
“She had a visit from a man in her cell on two occasions, who said something like, ‘Keep your mouth shut or we’ll kill you and your family’.”
Welcome to the fashion biz!
April 15th, 2006
In 2000, Estella Ngambi was lured to New York from her native Zambia with promises of a good-paying live-in nanny job and a chance to further her education and eventually send for her young daughter. But when Ngambi arrived in Yonkers, she says her job of caring for her new employer’s 2-year-old son suddenly and inexplicably included extensive cooking and cleaning during 18-hour work days _ all for $250 a month. She slept on the living room floor behind the sofa rather than in the bedroom her employer promised. “It wasn’t working like a slave,” said the 29-year-old, who filed a federal lawsuit against the man she worked for. “I was a slave. And I’m not the only one.” When supermodel
Naomi Campbell was charged recently with assaulting her housekeeper, domestic workers advocates say they weren’t surprised. The alleged assault was just one, unusually public example of the often-hidden horrors _ verbal and physical assaults as well as exploitation _ that many housekeepers, nannies, caregivers and other domestics across the country face, the advocates say. Domestic work arguably falls under the “jobs most Americans don’t want” rubric _ something that has emerged during the many immigration rallies in recent weeks. The grueling, relatively low-paying jobs are usually filled by immigrants. “We routinely hear about physical assaults, verbal and sexual harassment, non-payment of wages, not being allowed to take off or getting fired for calling in sick with a fever, getting fired for getting pregnant, and being forced to work overtime on a regular basis without notice,” said Ai-jen Poo, a paid organizer of Domestic Workers United. “It’s really widespread and it’s really not this one incident,” Poo said. The Domestic Workers union found an ally in Harlem Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright, who helped introduced what is called a “bill of rights” for domestic workers. The bill calls for wage standards, overtime pay, vacation, sick and personal time, advance notice of being fired, and penalties for violations. It also would prohibit trafficking in domestic workers. “It’s way overdue that we have a domestic workers bill of rights,” said Wright, whose paternal grandmother was a domestic in New Jersey. “Without them, the city of New York and the state of New York would shut down.” Wright expects the bill to reach the Assembly floor by early May. In 2002, Ngambi filed a federal lawsuit in White Plains against Teza Simunyola, the man she worked for until that year. In 2003, the case was settled for $45,000, their lawyers said. However, Simunyola’s lawyer, Paul J. Noto, disputed Ngambi’s allegations. Simunyola paid Ngambi’s room and board, medical expenses and a trip to Zambia, plus her monthly $250 salary, Noto said. “As bad as she says it was she went home and came back,” Noto said. “So it couldn’t have been that bad. Under no circumstances was she ever mistreated by the Simunyola family. She was looking for money.” Simunyola settled the lawsuit because of mounting legal costs, Noto said. Ngambi met Simunyola, who is also from Zambia, while he was visiting the south African country. Simunyola, a tennis instructor, was going through a divorce at the time and was keeping custody of his son, she said. “He said he was looking for somebody to cook Zambian food, who knew the culture and tradition,” Ngambi said. Simunyola told Ngambi that the $250 a month he would pay her would be plenty in America. He also said he would help her attend school and bring her daughter to the United States, she said. “Who doesn’t want to go to America?” she said. “So I said, OK, all right, this sounds good. After I came here it was something else.” Aside from cleaning, Ngambi says she cooked for Simunyola, his father and son. She says she waited until Simunyola got home, sometimes late at night, to make dishes such as dried pumpkin leaves and broiled fish. “He would say I want fresh food,” Ngambi recalled. “He didn’t like to use the microwave.” “Mop, sweep, vacuum, dusting, ironing. When I would get sick he would make me work. The conditions were horrible.” Eventually Ngambi met another domestic, also from Zambia, who took her to Domestic Workers United meetings. She later filed her lawsuit. Ngambi has since worked in at least three other domestic jobs, where she said employers increased her job duties but not her pay. Currently she is a nanny on Long Island. Eventually, Ngambi says she plans to return to Zambia, where her daughter remains with her parents. But she wants to go back with some accomplishments, she said. “Without the domestic workers this country would be nothing,” Ngambi said. “They need us to watch their kids (so they can) work, to clean their houses, watch their dogs, their cats, their birds to do whatever they want to do in their lives. “But as workers,” she added, “not slaves.”
This whole story reminds me of the modeling scene….
April 15th, 2006
Supermodel
Jodie Kidd is convinced she should be the next Bond girl because she is more than capable of performing her own stunts. The 27-year-old adores fast cars and extreme sports – and she is often seen hurtling round the track at British racing Mecca Silverstone. But Kidd fears producers will be scared off because her all-round excellence could leave even James Bond looking inferior. She says: “I’d like to be a Bond girl, but the producers haven’t found me yet. I’d do everything, all the stunts. “I’d probably end up being cooler than James.”
April 14th, 2006
Kate Moss insists her sex life is non-existent despite rumours she has rekindled her romance with Babyshambles rocker Pete Doherty.
The catwalk beauty was allegedly overheard moaning to fashion designer Marc Jacobs, at a New York photo-shoot: “I’m a nun now – I’m not getting any.”
We already knew that drugs make impotent. Isn’t it so Pete?
April 14th, 2006
The “models’ night” is nothing new to Bangkok, but lately our attention has been piqued by a cloud of controversy hanging over the regular circuit of restaurants and clubs that proudly take their nightly turn to host the “beautiful people.”
With Bed Supperclub – the original models’ night – every Wednesday, Flix every Tuesday, Koi and Zantika practically every night and Met Bar once a month, it was only a matter of time before the topic came up in BangkokRecorder’s online forum.
Perhaps predictably, most forum users were against bars and clubs providing free drinks and meals to models in exchange for borrowed glamour.
One regular voice in the forum said: “It’s not that I don’t like models it’s more that I find the concept extremely shallow. The clubs are basically giving free drinks to people that were lucky enough to have good genetics. Thailand is already fixated with beauty, there’s no need to encourage more prejudice by rewarding beautiful people and making normal people feel inferior.”
After all, Derek Zoolander once said, “I’m pretty sure there’s more to life than just being really, really, really ridiculously good-looking.”
When we asked partygoers out and about, one unhappy camper told us: “At all of these places, models drink or eat for free and the other customers pay inflated prices. We are basically subsidizing their party life.”
“The concept feels a little ‘rent-a-crowd,’” commented one well-heeled young Brit. “In London, it’s usually a last-ditch marketing attempt, but it seems more like an opening gimmick here.”
With the models’ night concept meeting such hostility, we decided to get to the bottom of what makes it work and how it can be simultaneously so popular.
Let’s take it from the beginning…
Bed Supperclub started Bangkok’s first models night in 2004. Of course, models’ nights did pre-exist in other parts of the world, and in fact Bed’s marketing advisor and models’ night innovater Jonathan Apichari has also organized similar nights in New York, Berlin and Budapest. “In New York, I didn’t really have to give away anything free at all… The models come in and they pay for drinks,” recalls the half-Thai, half-American businessman, who also manages four other companies.
“Even though the club doesn’t provide a free luxury lifestyle for the models, [they] would come anyway because… if a club’s hot, people in the fashion and entertainment industry will come.”
So, you may ask, what freebies are models privy to?
“We issue a models pass card,” says Jonathan. “[That] allows models to come on models night and any night of the week, free of charge. Any other day than Wednesday, they get two free drinks. On Wednesday they get 10 tickets and a bottle for every three models…Models get a main course. We don’t want to stuff them up too much, because the agencies might complain!”
Elsewhere, the freebies can be even more free-flowing. Sylvia Andreas, PR Executive at Koi, says that models show their pass to receive “complimentary dinner and drinks…every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”
The next logical question: why must models in Thailand be offered a “free luxury lifestyle” when models from elsewhere in the world seem to be more self-sufficient?
From the models’ perspective: “It’s a different culture…in NY and LA, the novelty of modeling is not at the same level as it is in Thailand…[Here] it seems like a lot more of a big deal. You’re treated like a semi-celebrity.”
Bed Supperclub’s management appear to have approached it in a more philanthropic light. “Well, first I did some research into the modeling industry in Bangkok,” explains the 26-year-old Jonathan. “It turns out that each week the models get paid an allowance, about 3,000 to 5,000 THB, but then you have other expenses… in the end they have very little left. They have to go to the agency and ask for advances.”
Models agree that working conditions are tough.
“The market has gone down in Thailand,” says Roline Robertson, an unusually older 26-year-old model. “I did some commercial campaigns two years ago for a lot of money, but now the pay isn’t as much.”
Another model we talked to at Bed’s models’ night said the apartments provided by the agencies were squalid. She mentioned that competition was fierce due to an over abundance of models in the city. Many have said that almost half their earnings are eaten up by agency rates and expenses. “There is also rivalry between Thai and foreign models because Thai models feel that we are taking their jobs,” revealed the aesthetically pleasing punter.
Most foreign models work in Bangkok on a temporary cash-in-hand basis on three-month visas. Jonathan is certain that the government will soon start cracking down on tax-evading model immigrants. He says he likes to see himself as a “resolution” to the problem.
“The main objective is not just to provide a free luxury lifestyle for models at Bed Supperclub,” says the cherub-faced Bed advisor. “It’s also to bring in people from the fashion industry closer together…At the end of the night, people land jobs. I would say that for each week, two or three models get jobs…People are starting to see what we’re trying to do here…it’s a win-win situation.”
The situation is so “win-win” that several other venues around town have started their own models night, though perhaps without the charitable intentions of creating “a friendly working environment” for the fashion industry.
First finding success in Los Angeles before expanding to New York and now Bangkok, Koi Japanese restaurant has quickly won over the model set.
“New blood will go [to Koi],” says Rosalind Morias, a casting agency owner who frequents Bed Supperclub’s models nights. “It’s the first place they hear about.”
We asked Sylvia to explain the objective of Koi’s models night. “Well, the whole concept behind Koi is that it’s chic, trendy and sexy,” says the half-Swiss, half-Thai PR executive.
Even though Sylvia insists the models are only a “small part of that concept,” Koi has launched itself as a model hangout from day one.
“I definitely think [Koi] uses models as kind of a marketing thing,” says a 23-year-old model, Matt Marshall we met at Koi. “I know for a fact that they market themselves to come to Koi because there’s beautiful people here.”
Another issue that one of our outspoken forum users had was that models “rarely mix outside their circle, let alone in the wider community.”
“There is a [model] scene definitely,” says Matt Marshall. “You don’t want to go to a bar … with JUST Thai people.”
“They sort of stick in their own groups,” says Rosalind Morias, a casting agency owner that frequents Bed Supperclub on a Wednesday night. “These are really beautiful people and sometimes … they’re still socially insecure and I don’t actually see them date outside of their circle, which is a pity. They’re a bit insecure about mingling.”
“It’s easy for us to go to Koi together,” explains the perfectly-chiseled Matt. “We’ll probably end up in Zantika or Flix, but that’s not to say we don’t mix with other people from different agencies.”
Now, that’s progressive thinking.
As long as there are swarms of partygoers happy to follow Bangkok’s beautiful crowd, models’ nights look set to continue spreading throughout the city. Bed’s Jonathan calls the concept an infectious ‘virus’, while others feel it has gotten out of hand.
“I think the whole theme of models attending models’ nights is over-rated,” says the petite Rosalind, who looks remarkably young for her 33 years. “Models night is basically to get them seen and scouted but for the models it’s like, ‘I get free drinks’ and it just turns into that.”
With freebies every night of the week, some model partygoers seem to be growing excessively cheeky.
“There is such a thing as models taking advantage of [models night],” confides Jonathan. “In the first five months of models night, they got a free bottle for every model… What they would do is to first to test out, they go for the cheapest kind of vodka and tequila. Then by the end of the month…they start ordering Grey Goose, Absolut Vanilla, 4,000-baht bottles of tequila…”
When the first monthly model bill came, Jonathan had to have a bit of a lie down. It was for over a million baht.
But at the end of the day, we have to admit we would probably do the same thing. Free drinks are great. It’s scientifically proven that they taste better. Resentment towards the models themselves is misguided, as models nights mushroom throughout the city.
While some Bangkok clubs genuinely strive to create fashion industry buzz, the rest use the model concept purely as a marketing ploy that can lead to overcrowding and an oxymoronic antithesis of exclusivity.
Perhaps three time male model of the year winner, Derek Zoolander summed it up best: “If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it’s that a model’s life is a precious, precious commodity.”
April 13th, 2006
Alex Hall didn’t have to dress up as a nursery rhyme character and hurl herself into the air while being photographed to prove she’s capable of strutting the runways as a top international model.
Nor did she need to walk the catwalk with hissing cockroaches tied to her outfit, as contestants in America’s Next Top Model had to do in a recent episode.
But if she was part of the gossipy, backbiting cast of waifs inhabiting the latest reality TV show hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks, just don’t let there be any rats.
“I’d do anything as long as it doesn’t involve a rat,” smiles Alex, 15, recently named 2006 Model of the Year by Model & Talent Search Canada at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver. MTSC, the biggest and most prestigious model recruitment company in Canada, claims the company’s website, hosts model searches in Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, and Halifax every year.
Last month about 50 teens from across B.C. assembled in Vancouver hoping to catch the eye of some of the world’s top modelling agencies present at the event.
To her surprise, Hall came first in the swimwear part of the competition and second in the runway segment, making her the overall winner.
“I just wanted to go for the experience and see how it would be because it sounded exciting,” said Alex, who attends high school in Nanaimo, and whose family has roots in Ladysmith.
“I thought from seeing there were so many good models there I wouldn’t get anything, but they ended up picking me, which is really surprising.”
Judges liked Hall’s natural beauty and exotic features, especially her dark hair and blue eyes, said her mom, Janis Libby, as well as her height. At a willowy 5’9”, Alex is the perfect height for a runway model, Janis said.
Alex said she’s always aspired to a career in modelling. Her room is wallpapered with photos of top models, and her devotion to America’s Next Top Model borders on obsession.
But Alex said she’s keeping low key on being chosen by MTSC and has only told a few people. “I don’t want to brag or say a lot but the people that do know are happy and excited for me,” she said.
Janis said her role is to keep Alex’s feet on the ground and not let her obsess about her weight or her looks, something Alex said won’t be a problem. “I love to eat,” she laughed.
The mother and daughter spent last week selecting a modelling agency for Alex, eventually picking Vancouver-based Lizbell after meeting with several agencies, including a representative from Trump Model Management, the modelling agency hired by the billionaire business icon.
Alex will spend the next few months building up a portfolio of photographs, and then hopes to start landing contracts with clothing companies and magazines.
She said her ultimate goal is to work in New York while attending university there.
“It’s like the main place where everyone goes. Modelling is definitely something I want to do as a career.”
April 13th, 2006
… with another mega deal!
Kate Moss will be everywhere in the coming weeks advertising the Nikon Coolpix S6. The supermodel is making a comeback of sorts, after losing contracts for a handful of fashion brands about a year ago. Moss is back with Calvin Klein, which made her super-famous a decade ago; and now she is promoting Nikon’s new digital offering.
The official kickoff of the ad campaign—in print, on TV, in theaters, and on the Web—is May 8.
Congrats! That’s what we call a come back…
April 12th, 2006
Kate Moss is set to step behind the scenes when she gives up her modelling career: she has told friends she plans to start her own fashion range.
A friend of Kate’s has been quoted: “Kate loves clothes and lives for fashion. She has no plans to retire yet but she knows her days as a model are numbered.”
“Her daughter Lila Grace is the most important thing to her and she knows she needs to provide for her and sees the fashion range as a good way of doing this.”
Nice thoughts, ‘tho Kate can’t be taken serious lately. We’ll talk about it once she is clean and has left Pete….
April 11th, 2006
Supermodel
Naomi Campbell will be appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show to give her side of the story following her arrest last week. Naomi was been charged with second-degree assault after allegedly striking her housekeeper with a mobile phone during an argument at the model’s Park Avenue apartment, causing a head injury requiring four stitches. However, the London-born star’s publicist J.R. Johnson has issued a statement claiming the 41-year-old housekeeper was acting in “retaliation” after being fired earlier in the morning. Campbell now wants to set the record straight and thing Oprah is the right place to do it. An insider at the chat show told The Sun: “We hope she’ll do an interview about the alleged attack and her past anger management issues.”Campbell and Oprah are good friends; so close in fact that Campbell is planning on writing her autobiography with the chat show host, she said recently: “Oprah Winfrey wants to help me write my memoirs, so I’m going to do it with her. I love her. Only I know the truth and I will be very frank about myself.”
April 11th, 2006
After a three-month nightmare in an Indonesian jail following a controversial ecstasy bust, all model Michelle Leslie wanted to do was “get her life back”.
