Fashion World Headed for MeToo-Style 'Reckoning' After Suki Waterhouse's Horror Stories, Claims Insider

Suki Waterhouse's disturbing account of her teenage years in modeling could help trigger a fresh MeToo-style reckoning over the treatment of young women in the fashion industry, insiders have exclusively told OK!.

The British singer, actress and model, 34, has described entering the industry at 16 and witnessing "bad things" happening to other young models, while recalling an environment in which complaints could threaten careers.

Waterhouse, who shares a daughter with Twilight actor Robert Pattinson, said she also worked with photographers who were later convicted of crimes.

A fashion industry source told us: "Suki is describing experiences that will be painfully familiar to many women who worked in modeling at that time. There is a feeling that fashion has never experienced the same comprehensive reckoning that other industries faced during MeToo. When somebody with Suki's profile talks this openly, it encourages other people to examine what happened to them and question why so much behavior was tolerated."

Another industry insider said: "The imbalance of power was enormous when Suki started out, particularly for teenagers who believed one complaint could end their careers. Agencies and clients controlled access to work, while young models were often expected to accept situations that would be considered completely inappropriate elsewhere. Suki speaking now could reopen a much wider conversation about accountability and whether enough has genuinely changed."

Waterhouse told Nylon magazine: "I knew of a lot of bad things happening to girls that I was around at the time and friends of mine. It's really scary. I've done shoots with people that have later been convicted."

Nylon reported Waterhouse once encountered a photographer who said he had no clothes available for her to wear and suggested that she pose n--- instead.

Waterhouse said: "You wouldn't ever even complain to your agency. No one gave a f--- if you had something to say. What are you going to say back to them if they all sit you down and say, 'Your measurements aren't good,' or, 'You need to lose weight.' If you seem to be difficult in any way, they really do not care to keep you around."

Waterhouse has since built parallel careers in acting and music, appearing in the television drama Daisy Jones & The Six and releasing her own records.

She has also spoken about the upheaval of becoming a mother after she and Pattinson welcomed their daughter in March 2024.

She told Variety: "Internally, there's been quite a lot of turmoil and just wondering if I'm doing the right thing. And especially, oh my God, the hormones right after you have a baby are so intense. It's like (I got) belief back in myself, and then also being... I don't want to say back in love with my partner, because it sounds like I was out of it, which I was never. But it's also a new relationship. Your old relationship has been wiped out, and so it's building that new one and kind of celebrating the beauty in that, like, we've survived this."

Waterhouse said she and Pattinson were determined to protect their daughter's privacy.

She said: "I think it really is possible to keep as much of your life private as possible. You can have both. But you don't want someone to recognize your kid in the street; it's a safety thing. What if she wants to be a really cool scientist? Twenty years from now we'll see if she wants to do anything in the public eye... (however, she) is, unfortunately, quite theatrical."