Emily Ratajkowski Accuses Photographer Jonathan Leder of Sexual Assault
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In a personal essay for New York magazine’s The Cut, model Emily Ratajkowski accused photographer Jonathan Leder of sexually assaulting her during a 2012 photo shoot when she was 20. Ratajkowski wrote that, at her agent’s direction, she agreed to the unpaid, overnight photoshoot—intended to be printed in a small artsy magazine—for “exposure.” The young model wrote that, when she arrived at Leder’s upstate New York home, she was surprised to discover that she’d be in lingerie for the photoshoot, and Leder later asked to photograph her naked. “The second I dropped my clothes, a part of me disassociated,” she wrote. “Most of what came next was a blur except for the feeling.”
She said that after Leder and her had drank a substantial amount of red wine, he digitally penetrated her without consent. A rep for Leder denied the accusations, telling Page Six: “It is grotesque and sad that she is so vindictive to lie in such a way to the press routinely.” Leder went on to publish several books and hold multiple exhibitions featuring the nude photos, despite Ratajkowski saying she only ever consented to having the images run in the small magazine.