‘I was the world’s highest paid male supermodel while trapped in a cult’

‘No one joins a cult, because joining is implying there’s informed consent. It’s more about seduction.’

In the 1980s and 90s, several major names ruled the modelling industry, including Naomi Campbell, Iman, Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford.

However, Hoyt Richards has a unique title, as he’s widely regarded as being the ‘world’s first male supermodel’. At the peak of his stardom, he was the highest-paid male model in the industry.

Rising to fame in the mid-80s after graduating from college, he modelled for brands including Versace and Ralph Lauren, counted peers such as romance novel model Fabio Lanzoni as his friends, and brushed shoulders with A-listers at the legendary Studio 54 in New York.

What fans might not have known was that behind the scenes, he’d been swept up into Eternal Values, a community led by the manipulative Frederick von Mierers that promised to send its followers down a spiritual path of enlightenment. Freddie also claimed to have had an extraterrestrial ‘walk-in’ experience, meaning that an alien had supposedly taken over his human form.

At the time, Hoyt was adamant that he hadn’t – and would never – join a cult. Years later, he realised the truth. He had been in a cult all along.

Hoyt (born John Richard Hoyt) met Freddie in 1978 when he was 16 while on a beach in Nantucket, Cape Cod. He was charismatic, addressing the teenager as though he was an adult, and making him feel special as he spoke to him about topics such as religion and the balance of the universe.

Freddie had a magnetism that drew people in, especially those seeking meaning and connection in their lives. Hoyt’s venture into modelling, a suggestion from Freddie, came at a crossroads while he was at college, when a shoulder injury had forced him to give up American football.

He found his mother too controlling, and he and Freddie had developed a friendship when they’d stayed in contact during the summer breaks.

He looked over at my friends and said, ‘You’re different than they are’

‘I’ll never beat myself up for what I signed up for, because I think even at 16, to consider the fact that maybe I could approach my life on a more spiritual basis, there’s nothing wrong with that,’ he tells Metro.

‘It just took me 20 years to figure out that’s not what it was, and that wasn’t any fault of myself, in the sense of being too naive or gullible. It was just not knowing certain elements were at play that I didn’t even know existed.’

Hoyt, 64, escaped the cult in 1999 and has since become a public speaker in the hopes that he can help prevent others from being seduced by cults, and provide guidance to families whose loved ones are trapped.

The model, actor and activist, who’s happy to go by either Hoyt or John (‘Whatever you’re comfortable with. As Prince would say, it doesn’t matter what you call me, just call me’), has delved into his experience in a haunting new HBO Max documentary called Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult, which includes testimonies from other models who were involved.

The documentary reveals how Freddie had an obsession with beautiful people and targeted them specifically to brainwash them into joining his cause. ‘Freddie always wanted the beauties. “Bring me the beauties, the beautiful people.” Yeah, it was all about beautiful people,’ one contributor says.

You might be wondering why the leader of Eternal Values is being referred to as ‘Freddie’, a nickname that could sound like a term of endearment. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Those narcissistic personalities just can’t get enough

‘It’s funny because when I think back on him, it was “Frederick” because it was very reverent, and the reason I call him “Freddie” now is because I know he would probably hate being called Freddie,’ Hoyt states in the series. ‘For me it’s just this tool that I use to reframe this experience on my terms now rather than the terms he demanded.’

Metro is speaking to Hoyt during the unrelenting June heatwave that hit the UK this summer. I couldn’t believe how the temperatures were soaring above 35 degrees Celsius that week. I was even more astonished hearing directly from Hoyt about how Freddie spun him into his web.

‘When I met Freddie on the beach, he would phrase things in a certain way, looking back on it, that was very clever, but they were a technique,’ he says. 

‘He definitely made it clear to me he had information he wanted to pass on to me that he thought was important for me to hear, but he would also frame it by saying, “Because you’re very smart, you’ll understand this,” and then go into the diatribe.

‘When he looked over at my friends and said, “You’re different than they are,” and I went down that rabbit hole going, “What does he mean by that? I don’t think I’m that different than my friends, is he saying that I’m special in some way?”’

The ethos of Eternal Values largely boiled down to chasing perfection and reaching a higher spiritual plane. The members of the group were encouraged to live healthier lives, avoid drugs and alcohol, and focus on relationships with each other without sex.

While he was at Princeton University, Hoyt’s friends expressed concern about his change in lifestyle to their school therapist, who couldn’t see anything wrong in the star athlete being healthier. But there was a lot more to this shift than met the eye.

The Matrix had just come out. That was kind of what I experienced

At the stage of his modelling career when he was earning millions, Hoyt would hand over every penny that he earned to Freddie. While he was staying in five-star hotels, he would come back to where he lived with Eternal Values and sleep on a mat on the floor. 

The members were encouraged to rat on and shame each other if they witnessed anyone committing what they deemed to be indiscretions. Freddie would use the powerful friends at his disposal to implement terrifying control and would encourage his followers to distance themselves from their families, insisting that they were the ones who were brainwashed. Hoyt’s mother called it a ‘cult’ very early on, but he couldn’t believe such a thing.

‘When I came out of this, The Matrix had just come out. That was kind of what I experienced,’ Hoyt recalls.

‘In essence, Freddie and the group were telling me, “All the brainwashing happened before you met us. You were stuck in the Matrix. We had to pull you out of this thing because you’ve been brainwashed by your parents, you’ve been brainwashed by the world. 

‘“Here’s the truth: we have to pull you out, and that’s why you can’t go back and start to deal with them, because they don’t even know they’re in the Matrix. They’re unconscious; they’re not going to figure it out until they leave their body and re-enter the spirit realm. So, by you trying to reconnect with them, they’re going to try to pull you off the very path that we’re trying to put you on.”’

It’s ludicrous, but at the time, you move into this thing of magical thinking

He continues: ‘I think anyone who’s got a family and friends who you might have issues with on some level, this gives you this spiritual pride to say, “You’re never going to get it, I’m never going to make you understand, I’ve got to show the discipline to do my thing, because we’re never going to coalesce in any way,” and so that’s where it really gets dangerous.’

One might ask how anyone could believe that Freddie was an alien, this man who appeared on the radio and on TV shows peddling his outlandish beliefs. In Hoyt’s case, he had always been fascinated by extraterrestrial life, believing that aliens exist and being a fan of Star Wars. Both very understandable and common interests.

Hoyt explains that when Freddie said that he was an alien, he claimed that others were as well; it’s just that he was conscious of it. The Eternal Values leader alleged that he’d had this walk-in experience during a crisis when he’d been on the verge of taking his own life.

‘It’s ludicrous, but at the time, you move into this thing of magical thinking, where it’s kind of like, one of the problems of the world is [it]s too close-minded, and when you free your mind to the possibilities out there, the impossible becomes possible.’

A lot of the archival footage of Freddie comes from Hoyt, who had stored all of the records. In 1990, Freddie died aged 43 from Aids-related complications, days before a Vanity Fair exposé was published about the cult. Nine years later, Hoyt escaped the group’s clutches.

‘It is just fascinating in this day and age that no one had really covered the story,’ Hoyt says. 

‘I’ve been talking about it for 20 years; I can only have so much of a reach going on podcasts or interviews of that sort of thing, so it never moved into the zeitgeist.

‘Even though Freddie’s not pictured in a very beneficial light, I think he’d be thrilled about the attention he’s getting right now. Those narcissistic personalities just can’t get enough.’

Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult is available to stream on HBO Max.