Kate Upton responded to Guess co-founder Paul Marciano’s denial that he ever sexually harassed her in an interview with Good Morning America on Friday.
On Wednesday, the 25-year-old model joined the #MeToo movement when she revealed to TIME how Marciano groped her on the set of her first campaign, when she was just 18.
Marciano, 65, quickly denied the allegations in a statement, calling Upton’s story ‘absolutely false’ and preposterous’.
Kate Upton appeared on Good Morning America Friday to speak about her sexual misconduct allegations against Guess co-founder Paul Marciano
In an interview with Time on Wednesday, the model said Paul Marciano (left) groped her on the set of her first campaign at the age of 18
‘I have never been alone with Kate Upton. I have never touched her inappropriately. Nor would I ever refer to a Guess model in such a derogatory manner.
‘I fully support the #metoo movement. At the same time, I will not allow others to defame me and tarnish my reputation. I have pledged to Guess and its Board of Directors my full support and cooperation with a fair and impartial investigation,’ Marciano said.
On GMA on Friday, Upton agreed with Marciano on at least one thing – the two had never been alone together. She says he blatantly harassed her in front of everyone on set, including the shoot’s photographer, Yu Tsai, who has corroborated her story.
‘I agree with him. We were never alone together and I made sure of it,’ Upton said.
After he groped her in front of Tsai, Upton said she had to ‘come up with a lot of different strategies to make sure I wasn’t in the same room with him alone’.
As for his denial, Upton says she saw it coming.
Marciano has since denied the claims, but Upton (pictured in September) says she expected that
Upton posted the above tweet on Twitter last week calling out Guess co-founder Paul Marciano
She then posted a screenshot of her tweet on Instagram with a caption saying he shouldn’t be allowed to use his power in the industry to harass women
‘Honestly I don’t really need his validation for what happened so I’m not looking for him to come forward and tell the truth. And honestly I expected him to do that and I think it speaks to how he’s treated these allegations in the past.
‘It used to work before but that’s not the case anymore and we’re being heard and our stories are taken seriously,’ she said.
Upton recalled the incident in her TIME interview on Wednesday.
‘As soon as I walked in with photographer Yu Tsai, Paul came straight up to me, forcibly grabbed my breasts and started feeling them – playing with them actually. After I pushed him away, he said, “I’m making sure they’re real,”‘ she said.
‘Despite doing everything I could physically do to avoid his touch throughout the meeting, he continued to touch me in a very dominating and aggressive way, grabbing my thighs, my arms to pull me closer, my shoulders to pull me closer, my neck, my breasts, and smelling me.’
Upton claims Marciano had asked the photographer to leave, but the model quickly sent Tsai a text message urging him not to go – but that allegedly didn’t stop the designer’s advances.
‘At one point he forcibly grabbed the back of my head so that I could not move and started kissing my face and my neck. I remember not wanting to say ‘Get off of me’ because I didn’t want to open my mouth to say anything because I didn’t want him to be able to put his tongue in my mouth,’ she said.
Upton was pictured in Pebble Beach, California on Wednesday with her husband, Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander on the same day the allegations surfaced in TIME magazine
‘I had two options: do everything I could to wiggle away and avoid his pursuit, or punch the CEO of Guess. So I decided to just wiggle away.’
Upton went on to claim that Marciano had asked to walk her back to her hotel room following the shoot but she immediately declined.
‘The only thing I was thinking is if he touches me like that in public, I can’t imagine what he’d try to do in private,’ Upton said.
She claims Marciano called repeatedly asking to visit her at the hotel and said that he was already down in the lobby.
Upton said the following day she was told she had been fired from the shoot.
‘Someone had called my agency to say I had gotten fat and would not be needed on set,’ she said.
‘I was devastated, especially because at this point no one from Guess had even seen me.’
Upton, who worked on several Guess campaigns after the initial encounter, went on to say that Yu Tsai essentially became her protector and ensured she was never alone with Marciano.
Marciano, pictured last week, described Upton’s claims as ‘absolutely false’ and ‘preposterous’. He claims he was never alone with her and never touched her inappropriately
But she claims Yu Tsai was eventually fired as well in what she describes as retaliation for helping her.
Upton claims on her final Guess shoot in 2011 that Marciano was outwardly rude and degrading the entire time.
‘He said I was “disgusting” and started telling people how unprofessional I was by spreading rumors that I was drunk on set and partying every night, which of course I wasn’t,’ she said.
‘I was then told to leave because Paul had said: “Get that fat pig off my set.”‘
When Guess asked her to do the 2012 campaign and offered her $400,000 – the highest paying offer at the time – Upton says she turned it down to avoid interacting with Marciano.
Upton, who went on to become extremely successful because of her Sports Illustrated cover, said she got through the ordeal thanks to the support of family and friends.
Upton told GMA’s Robin Roberts that she was inspired to tell her story after meeting with some new models recently ahead of New York Fashion Week.
‘I was going back and forth about sharing this story because it’s always easier to leave things in the past. But actually what gave me the push to do it is I did a workout with a lot of new models for fashion week since it was their first fashion week and a lot of girls were sharing how excited they were about the different opportunities they got and the start of their career.
Upton, pictured last week in New York on the day she made the accusations, claims Marciano forcibly kissed her face and neck
‘And I remembered being in that place whenever I got the meeting to go meet with Paul Marciano and how different my view of the industry after that meeting was and I wanted to prevent that from happening for these other girls who are just starting out,’ she said.
When asked why she didn’t tell her story seven years ago, Upton says ‘it was a completely different world’ – plus, there was a lot riding on her to continue working.
‘I was 18 years old and everybody around me is telling me to — well, they’re not telling me but they’re pushing me to not tell my story, it’s better to keep things in the dark or, you know, just go because everyone is incentivized by me getting on set, the agents, everybody gets paid if I show up on set. So you’re constantly pushed to show up on set no matter what happens.
‘And they’re bringing up examples of other women who are fine with this behavior and have really successful careers so you’re subtly being pushed to be there and then you’re also having doubt in your mind of how I acted. Did I ask for this treatment?’ Upton said.
Blaming herself is something Upton says she struggled with at first.
She said her meetings with Marciano had a ‘huge emotional impact’ and she started questioning whether she was asking for it.
‘You start blaming yourself and you try to change yourself. I started slumping my shoulders, wearing baggier clothes. And I had to go through this moment where I was like, that’s not my fault. That’s his fault, that is his way of acting and I had to empower myself again,’ she said.
Upton says she hopes telling her story will help inspire change in the industry so other girls don’t have to go through what she went through.
Since telling her story to TIME, Upton says she hasn’t heard from Guess, but would speak to the company if they decide to do an investigation into Marciano.
‘I think that it would be so nice to see big corporations and businesses doing this on their own, having investigations and looking into their offices on their own without victims needing to come forward,’ she said.