Actor Claims Photographer Who Allegedly Assaulted Emily Ratajkowski Also Abused Her

Photo:Dimitrios Kambouris / Staff (Getty Images)

A week after model and actor Emily Ratajkowski accused photographer Jonathan Leder of sexually assaulting her after a photo shoot, actor Nola Palmer has come forward claiming that Leder abused her. Ratajkowski wrote about the alleged assault in her essay “Buying Myself Back,” where she also mentioned a story that Leder had told her about his affair with a “‘crazy’ actress,” a relationship that had ended his marriage.

“He told me about his marriage’s undoing; that the actress, whom Jonathan had cast for a short film he’d been making at the time, came to live with them. He showed me naked pictures, Polaroids, he’d taken during their affair. She seemed so vulnerable in Jonathan’s photos, even though I could tell she was trying to look strong and grown up from the way she held her face square to the camera, chin up, her hair falling perfectly over one eye.”

Palmer says that she was the “crazy actress” who Leder told Ratajkowski about, and also claims that she was only 17 when she was allegedly being abused by the photographer.

In an Instagram post sharing Ratajkowski’s essay, Palmer wrote:

“I have been carrying around the pain and trauma of Jonathan and his abuse for a decade now. I have gone so far as changing my name because in my mind he owned it and I could not look at that name without seeing him. Everything in Emily’s article felt so familiar, it felt as if he was there standing behind me as I read it with his body pressing into my back, daring me to challenge him.

I have spent ten plus years emotionally tied to my abuser, unable to let him fully go because at seventeen he broke me down and built me back up into his own image, an image I have been at war with ever since. But for the first time I am able to publicly say, Jonathan Leder was my abuser and that is thanks to Emily Ratajkowski and her bravery.”