The Cruel Modeling Rumor That Haunted Presley Gerber as a Teen

Presley Gerber, who died at just 27, was only 16 when he walked his first runway at Moschino’s Los Angeles Resort show.

He had signed with IMG Models the previous year and, alongside his sister Kaia Gerber, had already appeared in the 2015 issue of the prestigious CR Fashion Book. In 2016, he also featured in a Calvin Klein campaign.

Looking back at those photographs now, he seems impossibly young—almost a baby.

Yet the modelling industry is no environment for a child.

During my years as a celebrity publicist, I worked with some of the fashion world’s biggest names, including Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Molly Sims and Petra Nemcova. I spent years backstage at runway shows, accompanying models on photo shoots and attending parties with them. The industry’s glamour can be spellbinding and intoxicating—but it can also be deeply dangerous.

At a fashion party in New York in 2010, I watched a world-famous model snap her fingers before a bowl of cocaine appeared, delivered as casually as sugar for coffee.

The bowl circulated around the room. Some women dipped their fingernails into the powder, while others used straws. Most disturbing of all were the young people present, mixing with powerful agents, photographers and wealthy men. The pressure to participate in destructive behaviour was immense.

There was also a disturbing sense of worldly degradation.

In 2005, I was backstage with Naomi at New York City’s Lexington Avenue Armory. Tyra was preparing for her final runway appearance before taking a lengthy retirement, while models changed clothes and stood around barely dressed. Wealthy businessmen moved in and out of the area with astonishing ease.

I frequently saw Jeffrey Epstein backstage at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows. He had already acquired a reputation for making people uncomfortable, although we had no idea then how extensive his depravity was.

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Bodies were openly displayed. Flesh seemed to be the only currency that counted.

During a magazine-cover shoot at Chelsea Piers, a striking male model was hired to dance around one of my leading female clients. When I stepped outside the studio to answer a phone call, one of the young men followed me.

He could not have been older than 21, yet he offered me sex in exchange for an introduction to Jennifer Lopez. I was devastated. This was a beautiful young man who had come to believe his body could be bartered for opportunity.

Those experiences took place years ago, but a friend who until recently ran one of the world’s leading agencies says little has changed.

“People like to pretend the business cleaned itself up. It hasn’t—they’ve simply become better at concealing it,” my source said. “The drugs, the predators and the pressure to be impossibly thin are all still there. The difference is that everyone now knows what they are expected to say in public.”

I can only imagine the pressure Presley Gerber faced. According to one fashion source, he struggled with comparisons to his mother, Cindy, and to his sister, Kaia.

“Presley never felt good enough,” said the owner of a leading agency. “He was always living in the shadow of his mother and sister. People assumed he received opportunities because of his parents, and that affected him enormously.”

None of this explains Presley’s death nor does it attempt to explain away the decision to indulge in dangerous behaviors. But it does offer some context. The modeling business can be psychologically brutal.

I’ll never forget what supermodel Iman, who was supporting Campbell’s inaugural fashion show during New York Fashion Week in 2005, once told me about the event.

‘They do it in a tent because it’s a circus.’

She wasn’t kidding.