Women accused Jean-Luc Brunel of drugging and raping models on American television in 1988. His career continued. More than three decades passed before French police arrested him.
Between those events, young women kept arriving with portfolios, travel plans, and expectations of paid work. Brunel offered access to agencies, photographers, and international assignments. His accusers describe a different experience once they depended on him for accommodation and employment.
Jeffrey Epstein eventually became his financier. Their relationship brought the modeling business into direct contact with a man whose recruitment of girls would become an international criminal scandal.
Brunel’s story begins long before the Epstein files. The first women who spoke were already describing the dangers younger women would later encounter. Their warnings raise a question more difficult than whether anyone noticed.
Why did so much continue after people spoke?