A California-based model has shared screenshots of Instagram messages to accuse celebrity photographer Marcus Hyde of trying to obtain nudes from her. Despite Instagram repeatedly removing her posts, her accusations have prompted other models to speak out against Hyde, including one who has accused him of sexual assault.
Sunnaya Nash, who lives in Los Angeles, shared screenshots of a conversation she said was with Hyde on her Instagram, and later, on Twitter. The photographer is known to have worked with celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino, and Kim Kardashian.
In the messages posted to Twitter on Monday, a person she says is Hyde is seen asking, “Nude?
“I don’t have nude photos,” Nash responds. “I’m comfortable shooting lingerie and partial nudity.”
“It’s 2k then,” Hyde responds.
“Lol,” Nash says. “But nude is free ?”
When Hyde says yes, Nash says she would be open to shooting nudes with him but wasn’t comfortable sending her nudes to him via chat.
Hyde responds that would be $2,000 as well.
“Bc i wont send you nudes of myself before shooting?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he responds. “Gotta see if your [sic] worth it.”
“Find someone else,” he says in a follow-up message. “Ill keep shooting celebs.”
Since Nash posted the exchange, several others have come forward with similar accounts, prompting responses from Kardashian and Grande.
Women who did photoshoots with Hyde said they never received their photos after declining to have sex with him or hang out with him at midnight. One unnamed model accused Hyde of sexual assault in a private message to Nash, according to screenshots she posted.
“DO NOT let anyone shoot with that guy,” the message says. “He continued to go out of his way to show me his videos of him Fucking girls that he shots.
“Then we are doing POV shots and this mother fucked sticks his finger in my vagina and I freaked out,” the message continues. “I told him I was done shooting and I never received any photos because I didn’t have sex with him.”
After Nash posted the interaction on her story, screenshots show him telling her in a message to “suck a fat big dick.” By Wednesday, his Instagram and Twitter accounts had been removed. Instagram confirmed with the Daily Dot that it had not deactivated Hyde’s account.
Nash’s posts prompted the #CancelMarkusHyde hashtag on Twitter, which others used to share their own experiences.
This tea on Marcus Hyde… smfh. You have a responsibility as a photographer. One of them being not taking advantage of your clients. Such trash. Shoutout to @thedevilsoftly for taking this stand and exposing him. #CancelMarcusHyde
— roman ⚡️ (@rromanalexander) July 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/katxwest/status/1153858345893281798?s=20
Models are so vulnerable to being taken advantage of/assaulted/raped because many people in the fashion industry view them as replaceable objects and don’t give a shit about them. Keep exposing these sick fucks and holding them accountable for their crimes #CancelMarcusHyde https://t.co/goJaV7cuaT
— ireland (@irelandkscheer) July 24, 2019
@thedevilsoftly well done. When I modeled in my early twenties I can’t tell you how many “weird/terrible” moments I had, but nothing quite as sickening as this. I’M SORRY to all of these women who had these awful assaults. Fuck this dude. #CancelMarcusHyde
— Liz Culley (@listentoliz) July 23, 2019
From conversations on social media, it appears that people have known about his abuse for some time but were afraid of speaking up.
I’ve been known Marcus Hyde was trash from comments under his IG posts. I remember then searching his name on TW to see if someone was speaking about his creepiness, nobody was — which confused me. Today, I regret not making screenshots. Thnks for speaking up & opening the convo.
— Megmacita (@megmacita) July 24, 2019
The truth will set you free. #timesup #CancelMarcusHyde pic.twitter.com/oZwcwmrJ8e
— Rachel Faulkner (@rachel_fbabyy) July 24, 2019
Another model, Alex Undone, reshared a post they said they’d written about Hyde without naming him.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0OX2z8nbrs/
“To the women that knowingly work with these men: just because it didn’t happen to you personally doesn’t mean it’s not your problem,” Undone wrote. “We have a collective responsibility to ourselves and the young women stepping into this industry to call out this behavior regardless of how ‘dope his pictures would be in my portfolio.’”
On Monday, Grande posted on her Instagram story to say the accusations against Hyde were “shocking and heartbreaking,” and urged her followers and other models to not work with photographers that make them uncomfortable.
After many repeatedly tagging Kardashian on Twitter, she wrote in her Instagram story on Wednesday that she is “deeply shocked, saddened, and disappointed to learn” about these women’s experiences.
“I stand in full support of every woman’s right to not be harassed, asked or pressured to do anything they are not comfortable with,” Kardashian wrote. “We cannot allow this type of behavior to go unnoticed and I applaud those who speak out.”
When Nash first posted the messages on her Instagram story, they were flagged for containing “bullying or harassment” and taken down.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0O9pn2AVnK/
She then received a notice saying her account may be deleted as some of her posts didn’t follow community guidelines.
“@instagram Is threatening to delete my account,” Nash wrote with a screenshot showing the notice from Instagram. “This is absolutely uncalled for. My post about Marcus Hyde was taken down and I’m trying to get it back up.”
“All my stories have been reported and taken down. Please help!” she wrote in the comments section of the picture.
She also shared her grievances on Twitter, where many tagged Instagram and asked that her account not be flagged for bringing a predator to light.
https://twitter.com/thedevilsoftly/status/1153549756649467905?s=20
On Tuesday, she posted a follow-up post on her Instagram thanking everyone for their support and thanking the women who came forward. It was followed with a note of thanks to those who helped prevent her account from being deleted.
But it apparently still continues to be a problem. As recently as Wednesday early morning, she again posted on her Instagram story, “Instagram took down my post again…..”
It’s not clear which post she was referring to in her most recent update, and Nash did not respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comments.
Instagram told the Daily Dot that her posts were deleted by mistake.
“This content was removed in error and has been reinstated,” said a spokesperson over email on Wednesday morning. “We apologize to Sunnaya for the mistake.”
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