Ellen Hancock – A Not So Model Life
Instagram: @gypsy_revival
On another Vegas trip I sat at a poker table with some of the promoters’ clients – the main one being an Asian billionaire at the other end of the table, surrounded by girls he had specifically flown in for himself. While watching them play with insane amounts of money, one of the other guys at the table who was playing with his wife handed me a $500 chip. I went to the cashier at the end of the night and was told the chip I was given was from the high stakes room and could only be cashed when the billionaire finished playing for the weekend.
I went back to my room bummed, as I was leaving Vegas the next day and would be stuck with the chip. But early in the morning I got a text message from one of the other girls saying that if I wanted to cash in the chip I had to do it right now – she had overheard that the cashier was finally allowing the chips to be traded in. So I hurried downstairs. To my surprise I got in line behind one of girls who had been specifically flown in by the billionaire – a model who, I’m not kidding you, was cashing out $120,000. My jaw dropped. While waiting to figure out how to get so much money back to her native country the promoters met up with her and another girl who had only scored $60,000 to figure out “their cut.” I was eavesdropping and heard that they were requiring a percentage for hooking her up with the client. I was stunned.
I also learned as time went on that the girlfriend who had introduced me to these trips had herself been sleeping around with one of the club owners and some of the clients. I didn’t think too much of it at first… she was a friend of mine and I didn’t want to judge. Things started to get to another level though. Like some of the other girls I had seen in Vegas she made other connections and was being flown around the world. She met a billionaire in Cannes and started dating him in Los Angeles. Over dinner one night she told me she knew how it looked being with a older unattractive looking man, but that she found the way he was financially helping her and a debt-ridden friend attractive.
The billionaire put them both up in an apartment for a year. Stopping by her home I saw the overwhelming results of the designer shopping trips his assistant would take her on, and I personally saw the assistant hand her a wad of hundred dollar bills at a cafe one day. On another occasion she told me about the strange sex demands he made, and how she was sure she wasn’t the only girl he was seeing. He had a connection in the modeling industry setting up agency meetings for her. She got a boob job. The girl who had previously insisted that women didn’t need to change their bodies… she herself got a boob job. She just… changed. Her life became surreal and she wasn’t the girl I used to know anymore.
One night at a club promoter excursion in Los Angeles I asked her not to leave me alone with a client who had taken an overbearing liking to me, and whom the promoters were insisting I go into Chateau Marmont with as we were dropping him off on the ride home. The promoters insisted that we go into his hotel party at least for a few minutes, and I agreed but made them assure me that they wouldn’t leave without me. I went to the restroom and next thing I know they were all gone. No one there to back me up, no ride. I might have expected something like that from a promoter to try to get their client laid, but not from my friend. I had to argue with the “client” to let me leave and get a taxi. He was trying to grope me the whole time, and his friends told me I better sleep with him as it was my one chance to be with a celebrity. It was a horrible night and I was so relieved when I finally got home.
Despite these experiences I actually briefly dated a guy I had met on one of the trips. When I met the guy I had no idea he had any money, as he wasn’t one of the promoter’s clients. He was just a random guy I had met. He was nice and intelligent. He seemed classy and not at all like the other party guys I had met. I was so, so wrong. In a strange coincidence it turned out later that my “friend” knew the guy, as they had been talking on the internet for a while. My friend and I talked about it and I was relieved to find out they had never actually met in person or dated. I talked to the guy about it too, and no harm no foul. It was indeed just an unfortunate and strange coincidence.
But I guess by this time my “friend” was over screwing her old hairy fat billionaire. She set up a date with the guy I was seeing and flew to see him as well. I found out by accident, spotting his tell-tale bracelet on a cropped photo on her Instagram. I confronted her, and she told me that they had slept together. It was like something out of a soap opera, except it was all too real. Who sleeps with a guy they’ve never met after finding out they are dating your friend? Both of them were crazy, and it threw me for a loop. But forget the guy, nothing hurts more than a friend stabbing you in the back. That was the worst part.
Though there had been many events leading into my disillusionment with what I can only call “that life,” this instance was the last straw. I was very hurt and lost – not so much because of the guy I’d barely started to know, but because I now knew what this lifestyle did to people. It turned them into shallow, selfish people. It had happened to my friend, and so many other people I had met. It seemed like a sickness, and I felt infected by it. I was scared for myself, scared that maybe I too had changed in some ways. I wanted to find my way back to where I started.
Models, Promoters & “That Life” – Part 1
Models, Promoters & “That Life” – Part 3
