THEY’RE ‘ORGANIC’

Model: NEXT Management Agent Told Me to Swallow Cotton Balls

“‘Cotton balls are organic, so it’s fine if you just swallow them to make yourself feel full,’” Esmeralda Seay-Reynolds remembers her agent telling her at 16.

Getting to strut at New York and Paris Fashion Week isn’t always all glitz and glam. Esmeralda Seay-Reynolds, who began her modeling career at 15 years old, described the harrowing behind-the-scenes of a multitrillion-dollar industry. “I remember my agent saying, ‘Cotton balls are organic, so it’s fine if you just swallow them to make yourself feel full,’” Seay-Reynolds told Variety. She was 16 at the time and working for NEXT Management, one of the biggest modeling agencies in the world. The same year, the young model was allegedly booked with a photographer facing sexual coercion accusations. On another occasion, Seay-Reynolds said she had to walk up a glacier in heels and a slip dress through snow, storm, cliffs, and lava beds for a shoot. “The photographer even asked us to jump over a crevice on top of the glacier, which plunged at least 20 feet,” she said. “Luckily, the stylist on the shoot was like, ‘That’s not happening. She will die.’” When reached for comment, a NEXT rep said “the unfortunate part is we’re not on every shoot” and denounced the cotton ball incident.