Marcus Hyde and Timur Emek: Photographers Kim Kardashian, Ariana Grande and Victoria’s Secret worked with accused by models of sexual assault

A number of allegations have been made against the two photographers 
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Megan C. Hills26 July 2019

Kim Kardashian has spoken out following allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct and assault made against two high profile photographers.

The allegations are levelled at Marcus Hyde, who has previously worked with Kim Kardashian and Ariana Grande, and another man named Timur Emek, who has previously photographed shows for Victoria’s Secret.

A number of models who had previously worked with or hoped to work with the photographers accused them of sexual coercion and harassment. One accused Emek of rape.

Since the accusations were first reported by Instagram fashion account Diet Prada on Tuesday, Kardashian and Grande have issued an apparent response to the allegations against Hyde, which pre-empted the Emek allegations. While the posts do not name Hyde, both appeared to address the “heartbreaking stories” surfacing about him. Grande also cautioned models against working with “photographers who make you feel uncomfortable”.

Instagram / @arianagrande

Grande penned an open letter on Instagram, writing, “dear models / artists in LA / anywhere, i have just read some shocking and really heartbreaking stories. i hate that this is a conversation. but. please do not shoot with photographers who make you feel uncomfortable or make you feel like you need to take your clothing off if you don’t want to.”

She also touched directly on a core tenet of many Hyde accusations, which saw a number of women claim Hyde had charged them a high fee for a photo shoot - but offered to waive the fee entirely if he could shoot them nude. Grande wrote, “if [a photographer tells] you you have to pay more money if you’re clothed that’s f***** and i’m sorry that has happened to you...i hate hearing about things like this. i am sorry that that was anybody’s experience and know that it doesn’t have to be.”

Grande called for people to “look out for one another” and to signal boost photographers who individuals “have had positive experiences with”, promoting photographers Alfredo Flores who has been snapping her Sweetener tour, Ricky Alvarez and Stefan Kohli.

Instagram / @kimkardashian

Kardashian appeared to address her own “professional” experience with Hyde, saying, “I have been reading all of the messages and stories from women regarding inappropriate and inexcusable behavior [sic] of a photographer that I have worked with in the past. My own experiences have always been professional, and I am deeply shocked, saddened and disappointed to leran that other women have had very different experiences.”

“I stand in full support of every woman’s right to not be harassed, asked or pressured to do anything they are not comfortable with. We cannot allow this type of behaviour to go unnoticed and I applaud those who speak out,” she said.

Who is Marcus Hyde?

Getty Images

Hyde is a Los Angeles-based photographer with a roster of celebrity clients, including the likes of Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian West, Kanye West and Kendall Jenner. His work garnered him a large following on social media, especially on his now private Instagram which has over 1 million followers including Jenner and Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan, who were still following him as of this morning.

He also published a coffee table book named Girls on Film, which features a number of his photographs shot on film. The book was priced at $100 and is currently sold out.

Last year, Kardashian-West drew attention to Hyde when he was involved in a Malibu car crash which nearly ended his life. He was also in the car with his former friend Aislynn Hotung who suffered a major concussion and wrote, “About ten hours after I had landed [on a flight to Los Angeles] Marcus & I drove 200 ft off an embankment located on PCH in Malibu.”

Kardashian-West later tweeted about Hyde, imploring her fans to “Please pray for my friend @MarcusHyde”.

She also shared a picture of a figure (presumably Hyde) and captioned it, “I’m trying to find the perfect picture but I don’t want to share them. We were saving these for our book. Angels are surrounding you. I’m praying so hard for you. Please be ok. Please come back @marcushyde.”

According to WWD, Kardashian-West and her husband Kanye helped fund Hyde’s medical bills and reportedly donated $25,000.

What accusations have been made against Marcus Hyde?

The first model to kickstart a wave of allegations against Hyde was a model and interior design student Sunnaya Nash, who posted screenshots of her direct messages with Hyde on Instagram. According to Diet Prada, Nash responded to a call for models on Hyde’s Instagram stories which featured a censored picture of a model and the words, “Who wants to shoot?”

In the screenshots, Hyde can be seen negotiating a price for a photoshoot with Nash. In the screenshots, Hyde asks Nash for a nude and after she tells him she doesn’t have any, he tells her his price is $2,000 for the photoshoot.

She later asks, “But nude is free?”

“Ya,” Hyde responds.

She then asks Hyde to clarify and asks, “[Because] I won’t send you nudes of myself before shooting?”

Hyde responds, “Yeah. Gotta see if your worth it.”

After their conversation breaks down and Hyde says he’s “serious”, he tells her to “Find someone else. I’ll keep shooting celebs.”

Nash later shared their DMs on her personal Instagram account, which Hyde later responded to with the words, “Suck a fat big d***.”

Following her accusations, a number of women messaged Nash with their own stories which she began sharing on Twitter. One user thanked Nash for sharing her story and then claimed, “He straight up sexually assaulted me and then blew up working with Kim right after.”

Another user wrote that they had been messaging Hyde over the past week and “thought it was legit”. They wrote, “I sent him the nudes. He screen-shotted them. Then avoided any arrangement to try and shoot. I feel disgusted and sick and violated.”

A couple recounted how Hyde would also allegedly ply them with alcohol. One said that she was “afraid he wouldn’t want to shoot if I didn’t say yes [to mild nudity], so I approved”. After becoming “behind wasted” following Hyde pouring her shots, the accuser alleged that he attempted to sexually assault her and she was “too drunk to say stop”, following which the individual claimed he had had sex with her and “photographed the entire thing”.

After the exchange, the woman claimed Hyde continued to contact her and added, “When I refused, he asked if I wanted to receive the pictures he took of me. I said yes, and he said he would only give them to me if I went over to his place again.”

Similar allegations followed, with a pattern of accusations emerging against Hyde which included claims that he had coerced models to shoot naked despite them feeling uncomfortable, that in some cases he had sexually harassed them under the guise of a photoshoot and either threatened not to share the pictures or not send them over altogether.

Another said that after they had agreed to shoot with Hyde, Hyde had taken a nude photograph of her despite the fact that she had “made it very aware I didn’t want any boobs/nipple out” and published a picture to his Instagram of her with her breasts exposed even though she “didn’t authorise it or was even aware I was being photographed”.

(Instagram / @diet_prada)

Diet Prada later shared Nash’s story, which led to more people coming forward. Alleged email exchanges with Hyde were shared, where he was seen pressuring models to shoot nude. Diet Prada later shared a screenshot of its own interaction with Hyde who appeared to have reached out following their posts.

In the screenshot of the direct messages, Hyde appears to threaten Diet Prada and claims that their “day is coming”. He continued that he “had something for you. Just wait.”

Many Instagram posts from Hyde’s feed were then archived, as backlash from the allegations ensued in the comments. Hyde initially archived a number of posts and eventually put his account on a private setting, removing his profile picture.

(Instagram / @diet_prada)

Nash’s posts regarding the allegations against Hyde have since been removed by Instagram and she has posted a screenshot of two warnings, one which claimed her Instagram story had been “removed for bullying or harassment” and another which claimed that her “account may be deleted” under claims of “bullying or harassment” and “nudity or sexual activity”.

Instagram initially restored her post, claiming that it had been “removed in error and reinstated”. However, Nash clarified again this morning that the post was taken down again without explanation. Nash has since reposted everything to Twitter in a long thread.

The Evening Standard has reached out to Hyde for comment.

Who is Timur Emek?

Emek is a photographer based in New York, who initially trained as a photojournalist and later moved into portraits and fashion photography. On his official website, the Berlin-born photographer says he has contributed to Vogue, Elle, GQ and Harper’s Bazaar as well as working for a news agency between 2010 and 2012.

He is also a notable street style photographer with a strong presence at fashion week and has previously shot the likes of Alessandra Ambrosio, blogger Chiara Ferragni and Hailey Baldwin. He is also credited as a photographer for many images from the 2017 and 2018 editions of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

What accusations have been made against Timur Emek?

Following the string of allegations made against Hyde, other models began to share reports of sexual assault and alleged rape at the hands of Emek. As with the Hyde accusations, many of the claims were shared by Diet Prada.

Production designer Haley Bowman came forward with her own story, claiming that he had sexually assaulted her when she was 19 years old. She alleged that after meeting him at music festival Panorama, Emek invited her into his private apartment and “took about 3 photos of me before pulling down my shirt”. Following that, she claimed he eventually “snapped a bunch of photos while I was exposed” and then allegedly grabbed her hand to place it on his penis. After she withdrew her hand, she claimed he then exposed himself to her and pressed her hand to his genitals again in a cycle that “goes on for what felt like years”.

(Instagram / @diet_prada)

Bowman said, “You know what’s f****d up: people like this don’t assault their ‘real’ clients. They assault people who they think can’t take them down, who don’t have a voice in the industry. It may have taken me 5 years, but I have one now, and I refuse to watch others like him fall while he carries on working, untouched.”

In other accounts shared by Diet Prada, one Instagram user shared screenshots of DMs with Emek. In them, Emek claimed that he wanted “some fun babe and I will help you a lot”. After the user asked for clarification on what “fun” meant, Emek responded, “i am a man. think about a bit :-)”

Instagram / @diet_prada

Another string of messages were shared with Diet Prada by Turkish model Deniz Tekin. Diet Prada claimed that Emek had told Tekin he had gone over her head to talk to her modelling agency, but claimed it “didn’t actually happen as [Emek] had already been on their agency blacklist of photographers”. In the text exchanges, Emek is seen allegedly pressuring Tekin to agree to a topless photo shoot and is seen writing, “i usually do ONly paid shoots. If i don’t get paid :-) then we shoot after my rules”.

Other accounts followed, which included claims that he had agreed to a photoshoot but two hours prior messaged the model to ask “if I want to stay over in his place and if I don’t mind [having] sex with him”. Another said that they discovered Emek had allegedly distributed topless photographs of her taken while she was “moving poses” to a mutual friend, and they continued, “I felt so violated that a photographer would discuss these images.”

The most serious accusations came from anonymous users who messaged Bowman with their own stories. One user alleged that Emek had raped her when she was 17 years old, writing, “I was shooting with him and he f*****g raped me dude.”

(Instagram / @diet_prada)

Another model named Jade Warnes also claimed that Emek had “lured” her into a hotel room when she was 17 years old and offered to pay her for sex, following a lingerie photoshoot. She also claimed Emek deleted the photos.

Another user who asked to remain anonymous also claimed that Emek was “the biggest predator I’ve ever had to deal with” and alleged that he “pressured me into having sex with him”.

(Instagram / @diet_prada)

The user continued, “I felt so trapped that I left and cried all the way home. I never ever saw him again after that and cried all the way home...I really hate the word rape because I feel worthless but I did not want it and was completely stuck.”

Emek has since set his Instagram profile to private. The Evening Standard has reached out for comment.

Ariana Grande - In pictures

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