A new HBO docuseries is shining a light on one of the strangest and most forgotten cult stories of the 20th century, one that pulled in supermodels, New York socialites and young professionals through charisma, flattery, and promises of spiritual greatness.
Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult, a three-part series directed by Chris Smith, premiered on June 1 and tells the story of Eternal Values, a cult that operated in the 1980s and 90s and the man at its center, former supermodel Hoyt Richards.
What’s Eternal Values, who’s Frederick von Mierers?
According to TIME, Eternal Values was founded by Frederick von Mierers, who presented himself as a prophet and claimed he had come to Earth from Arcturus, a star he described as the spiritual center of the universe. He told followers that they also originated from Arcturus and had been chosen to help prepare humanity for a coming global disaster, known as a “pole shift,” which he predicted would happen by 1999. He had already identified land deep in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains where he believed alien spacecraft would one day land to carry his group to safety in rejuvenation chambers.
On the surface, von Mierers looked nothing like the typical image of a cult leader. Richards describes him in the docuseries as a “Brooks Brothers version” of a guru, who is preppy, polished, and commanding. He threw parties, moved easily through New York’s social circles and drew people in through flattery and the promise of belonging.
However, the experience inside the group was far darker. Members were discouraged from drinking and using drugs, required to remain celibate in the early years, and watched one another constantly. And when someone crossed the line then he used do “slamming sessions”, which was hours of shouting and public humiliation that von Mierers framed as spiritual correction.
Also Read: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey breaks the internet as AMC, Fandango face major delays
Who is Hoyt Richards?
At the heart of the docuseries is Hoyt Richards, sometimes referred to as the first male supermodel, who appeared in campaigns for Versace, Valentino and Ralph Lauren. He also gave the group millions of dollars from his modeling earnings and nearly two decades of his life.
Richards first met von Mierers at 16 on a beach in Nantucket, where the older man’s attention made the teenager feel seen, the very vulnerability von Mierers would go on to exploit. In 1985, at the peak of his career, Richards would return to New York and sleep on a mat on the floor of a cult apartment, crediting every professional success to the group’s spiritual work.
“I became my own worst enemy because I so fell in love with the narrative,” Richards told TIME.
Additionally, Richards told Page Six that he believes he handed over millions of dollars to cult leader Frederick von Mierers, who claimed to be an alien. “I wasn’t great at accounting back in those days, but I would put it between 4 and 5 million,” he said.
Also Read: Is Joe Rogan joining 60 Minutes after Anderson Cooper’s exit? Here’s the truth
What came after?
Von Mierers died in February 1990 of AIDS at the age of 44, days before Vanity Fair published its definitive account of Eternal Values.
By 1999, the apocalypse that the group had predicted never happened. Around that time, Richards was traveling to cities like Paris and London for modeling jobs and began noticing that there were no signs of the disaster he had been told was coming. This led him to start questioning the group’s beliefs. He had also been secretly carrying on a relationship with a woman named Donna. When he finally confessed both his doubts and the relationship to the group, nine weeks of nightly humiliation sessions followed. He was also assigned menial work and forced to shave his head, which effectively ended his modeling career. During this period, members of the group gave him the nickname “Dipsh-t.”
He left not in anger but in what he describes as a fog of shame, writing a note saying he was quitting. He stayed with fellow model and friend Fabio Lanzoni while slowly beginning to process what had happened. “My main criteria for the fact that it couldn’t be a cult was the fact that I was in it,” Richards told TIME.
In 2002, the organization effectively ceased to exist. Richards reconnected with his family and has since spent 25 years turning his experience into something purposeful. Now in September, he will marry Donna, the woman he once hid from the group for four years.
Director Chris Smith told The Guardian that he was drawn to the story because so little information about Eternal Values existed online. “What was odd about this story,” Smith said, “is that there was very little about it online.”