Victoria's Secret Model Goes Public About On-Set Sexual Assault

Victoria's Secret model Bridget Malcolm has revealed that she has been sexually assaulted while on set and hit back at Karl Lagerfeld, who recently said he was "fed up" of hearing about models' and actors' experiences of sexual harassment.

Malcolm, 26, was in the public eye last month after she opened up about her struggles with body dysmorphia and apologized for promoting 'clean eating.'

Writing on Instagram and Twitter on Thursday, Malcolm said: "I have been sexually assaulted on set multiple times," before addressing comments made by Lagerfeld in an interview with Numéro this week. "I wonder @KarlLagerfeld what existence is like when you are part of the ruling class in society. Women will not be dressed by misogyny anymore. Shame on you. #Metoo," she wrote.

In the article, Lagerfeld made a string of controversial statements, including that he has had enough of the #BalanceTonPorc movement (the French counterpart to #MeToo), and that he was surprised it has taken the women so long to remember being assaulted or harassed. He then noted that the movement hasn't affected how he operates at work. "I read somewhere that now you must ask a model if she is comfortable with posing," he said. "It's simply too much, from now on, as a designer, you can’t do anything."

He then went on to defend "poor" Karl Templer, Interview's former creative director who was accused by three models of sexual harassment in February. "I don’t believe a single word of it," Lagerfeld said of the allegations. "A girl complained he tried to pull her pants down and he is instantly excommunicated from a profession that up until then had venerated him. It's unbelievable. If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent. They’re recruiting even!"

Malcom has spoken out about sexual misconduct in fashion before. In a blog post in February, titled "How To Protect Yourself As A Woman In The Fashion Industry," she said that models who "didn't play along" with "handsy photographers and editors" were branded as "hard to work with" and "cold." "Dealing with these people was a constant balancing act; how to come across as ‘cool’ and ‘fun’ without getting assaulted," she continued. "It was being in a position where you were being worn down, where you couldn’t come out and say a hard ‘no’ because of the power imbalance. And, if the worst did happen, it was keeping quiet, bottling up the pain inside, and dealing with it in all your future relationships and endeavors."