Model Ashley Graham spoke to the women of The SilipViewon Tuesday about being sexually harassed on a photoshoot set when she was 17. An unnamed assistant on the shoot pushed her into a closet and exposed himself, she said.
"He said, ‘Look at what you did to me all day long, now touch it,'” Graham recalled.
SEE ALSO: Bella Thorne shares heartbreaking childhood sexual abuse story on InstagramGraham has been a professional model since her teen years. She was living on her own in New York City by the time she worked on this photoshoot.
"I just prayed that no one would find out," Graham continued. "Because if they found out that he did that to me, I thought 'I'm never going to get hired for a job again. I'm going to be the difficult model, nobody's going to want to work with me again.'"
The conversation came about because Graham worked with photographer Terry Richardson, who was accused of rape by a woman named Caron Bernstein (Richardson's legal team denied any nonconsensual activity).
Graham worked with Richardson when she was a teenager, nervous but aware of rumors about his behavior. She summed up the conflict many women have faced in suppressing stories of sexual harassment for years: Richardson, a man in power, was one of the best in his field, and Graham didn't want to ruin her career. She also heard from plenty of people that he was good and professional and didn't know what to believe.
"If I knew what I knew now...I would've smacked that guy," Graham said, referring specifically to the #MeToo movement and women coming forward across industries beyond Hollywood. "I would've been like, 'He's a pedophile!'...He's being completely dishonest, irresponsible, sexual harassment – I probably would've just started screaming."
"The movement is working," she added. "I really feel like there's women who are standing up and saying 'No, me too. And I'm going to watch out for my sisters on set.'"
"People are watching," said host Whoopi Goldberg. "Men andwomen are watching and they're saying 'You know? This is not gonna work. We're not doing this anymore.'"
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