Blame is the industry’s favorite anesthetic. It numbs the pain of systemic failure by localizing the infection to a single person. Currently, the spotlight is fixed on Faith Kates, the founder of NEXT Management, framed as the high-society concierge who allegedly funneled young women into the orbit of Jeffrey Epstein. The narrative is tidy, cinematic, and fundamentally lazy.
If you think Kates or any individual agent was the primary engine of this machine, you don’t understand how the modeling business actually functions. You’re looking at the usher and ignoring the architecture of the theater. For an alternative perspective, read: this related article.
The "lazy consensus" suggests that a few "bad actors" bypassed industry safeguards to facilitate Epstein. That premise is a lie because it assumes safeguards existed in the first place. I’ve sat in the back rooms of agencies from Paris to New York. The reality is far more clinical and far more transactional.
The Fallacy of the Gatekeeper
The media loves the "Dear Friend" narrative. It suggests a personal, shadowy betrayal of trust. In reality, the modeling industry in the 1990s and early 2000s wasn't a community; it was a high-volume clearinghouse for human capital. Similar insight on this trend has been provided by Deadline.
Agents are not parents. They are brokers. Their job is to maximize the "billable life" of a biological asset that depreciates every time the earth circles the sun. When a man with a private jet and a Rolodex full of billionaires asks to meet "the new faces," an agent doesn't see a predator. They see a shortcut to a prestige booking or a powerful connection that keeps the agency solvent.
To single out Kates is to ignore the fact that the entire industry was—and largely remains—built on a foundation of "extracurricular" networking. Epstein didn't need to subvert the system. He was the system's ideal client: wealthy, influential, and capable of providing the "lifestyle" that agencies use to lure girls from small towns into a world where $500-a-day catalog gigs barely cover the rent.
The Myth of Model Protection
Why do we pretend that agencies are protective cocoons? Let’s look at the math.
A standard agency takes 20% from the model and another 20% service fee from the client. On a $10,000 booking, the agency clears $4,000. But the model's share is often eaten alive by "expenses":
- Test shoots: $500–$2,000
- Comp cards: $300
- Model apartment rent: $1,500/month for a bunk bed
- Messenger fees and portfolio "management"
By the time a young woman is sent to a "dinner" or a "party" with a billionaire, she is often technically in debt to her agency. This financial leverage is the silent partner in every predatory interaction. When the industry finger-points at Kates for her "friendship" with Epstein, it’s a distraction from the fact that the industry’s business model requires models to be desperate enough to say yes to "informal" networking opportunities.
The Power Vacuum Epstein Exploited
People ask: "How could she not know?"
That is the wrong question. In the high-stakes world of New York fashion, "knowing" is a liability. Plausible deniability is the currency of the elite. If an agent "knows" a client is dangerous, they have a legal and moral duty to act. If they merely "suspect" or "provide introductions," they are just doing business.
Epstein exploited the industry's greatest weakness: its obsession with proximity to power. He wasn't just a guy with a plane; he was a man who claimed to manage the wealth of the people who owned the brands. If you are an agency head like Kates, and you believe a man controls the purse strings of Victoria's Secret or L Brands, you don't vet him. You court him.
The industry didn't fail to protect models from Epstein. It succeeded in its primary goal of securing access to the 0.1%. The models were the collateral.
The "New Face" Meat Grinder
The focus on Kates suggests that if we just remove the "enablers," the industry becomes safe. This is a dangerous delusion.
The predatory nature of the business is baked into the "scouting" process. Agencies thrive on "New Faces"—girls often as young as 14 or 15 who haven't developed the social agency or the legal literacy to navigate a room full of sharks.
Imagine a scenario where a 16-year-old from a village in Siberia or a suburb in Ohio is told that a "close friend of the agency" wants to help her career. The power imbalance is total. It’s not just about one agent’s "dear friend." It’s about a global pipeline that treats teenagers as disposable inventory.
Stop Asking if She Was a Friend
The obsession with the personal relationship between Kates and Epstein is a tabloid fix. It lets everyone else off the hook.
What about the photographers who stayed silent? The casting directors who looked the other way? The brand executives who used Epstein’s townhouse as a satellite office?
By focusing on Kates, the industry performs a ritualistic cleansing. They cast her as the villain so they don't have to look at their own balance sheets. They want you to believe that the "Epstein era" was a fluke, a glitch in the matrix caused by a few bad people.
It wasn't a glitch. It was the feature.
The Brutal Truth of Accountability
If you want to "fix" the industry, stop looking for "dear friends" of predators and start looking at the contracts.
Real change doesn't come from a social media bonfire of one woman’s reputation. It comes from:
- Eliminating the Debt Trap: Ending the practice of charging models for basic business overhead that keeps them tethered and desperate.
- Legal Transparency: Requiring third-party oversight for all "private" or "lifestyle" bookings.
- Fiduciary Duty: Establishing that an agent has a legal obligation to the safety of the model that supersedes their loyalty to the client.
Until those things happen, every "New Face" is just another potential victim of the next Epstein, and every agency head is just waiting for the next billionaire to call.
Faith Kates isn't the architect of this hellscape; she’s just one of its most successful residents. If you tear down her house, the neighborhood remains exactly the same.
Fix the industry’s financial structure or admit you don't actually care about the models. Pick one.
