Reality bites for modeling hopefuls

What may have been a make-believe tirade for the benefit of TV cameras was one thing, but some contestants say they were really taken aback later during a shoot at a beauty salon.

Gemase had the camera crews videotape the young women getting bikini waxes.  What's more, the host wanted to be in the room.

Gigi Freeman: Yeah, he was in there raisin' up the cover, looking while we were getting waxed.

He even made the men suffer through body waxes of their own.

Cameraman Izzy Cardoza says it was a challenge to keep the bikini wax shoot from getting R-rated. What he saw was more explicit than what he taped.

Izzy Cardoza: I tried at some point to be discreet because how are you gonna put this on television?

Hansen: Did you feel intrusive?

Cardoza: I did, I felt a little embarrassed.

But if the cast and crew were growing a bit uneasy with the on-camera action, it got even worse with what some say was the host's off camera behavior.

Contestant Sabrina Griffin says Gemase Simmons sometimes made offensive remarks to her when the cameras weren't rolling.

Sabrina Griffin: References to your crotch, or your butt… you know, “There are a lot of things that I could do with a body like that.” 

Hansen: You felt he'd crossed a line.

Griffin: Completely. Completely.

Video   For hopefuls, cruel and unusual challenges The model hopefuls start taping for the show, going through rough challenges and boot camp. They also get to know Gemase Simmons, their somewhat-unknown host, who tells them he was an ex-Ford super model. Dateline NBC

But it was on their third night of model bootcamp, after days of excruciating physical challenges that the guys say their Bible-quoting host really crossed the line.

Ugo Mozie: Oh, I mean like prior to this night, I was always getting the sense of him like looking at me in different ways.  And like always sensed his was...

Hansen: What kind of different way?

Mozie: Like in the sexual way. one night, he said "We have to have a meeting."  So he called me. I'm up there. I go to his room.

Hansen:And no camera are rolling?

Mozie: No. No cameras rolling.

Hansen: Did they strike you as strange?

Mozie: Yeah. It was very strange.

Ugo says the private conversation with Gemase involved his promising future as a model.  The host said he could find Ugo lots of high-profile work, but there was a catch: Ugo would first have to willing to take what he called a "protegee job."

Hansen: Protege job?

Mozie: Protégée.  Yes.

And this job involves sleeping with the casting director.

Hansen: So it was making it sound like that this is how the business works.

Mozie: Yes.

Hansen: You have to have sex with the casting director?

Mozie: Yes.

Hansen: The casting couch.

Ugo: To get big. To be a supermodel. He said he had to do it. Everyone else has to do it too. I said "No, hell no, straight up."

Hansen: Was he hitting on you?

Mozie: He was like indirectly hitting on me, like trying to, um… feel me out.

Hansen: And you were how old at this time?

Mozie: I was seventeen at this time.

One by one the guys in the group say they were called to the host's bedroom-- no cameras rolling-- to talk "business."

Jose says he was promised a big-time gig modeling for Jockey--- but first he had to strip down to his underwear for a private audition.

Jose Garcia: And he asked me if I was like, you know, circumcised and stuff.  and-- (laughter) I was like--  but it was like, "What does that has to do with modeling?"

Phillip also had a late-night business meeting in the host's bedroom.

Phillip Doubek: He's like, "I've talked with Gap. I've talked with a surfboard company. All these other companies want you to be a model for their agency."

And, like the others, Phillips says his conversation with Gemase took a very strange turn.

Doubek: He started saying "Yeah, you gotta be comfortable with guys.  and you gotta-- you should sleep together with a guy just so you get comfortable being around them."  And I was like, I've done modeling in the past and there was never been nothing like that before. And then he was finally like, "Well, why don't you come lay down with me?" 

Hansen: He wanted you to come lay down next to him.

Doubek: Yeah. He offered me to lay down, take off my clothes and stuff.  And I was like-- right when he said that, boom--

Hansen: You were outta there.

Doubek: Yeah, out the door. 'Cause I was furious at the time.  I wanted to pack my bags and leave 'cause I wanted no part of this show anymore after that happened.

But Phillip and some of the others still believed the show might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity-- too good to give up.  So that night, the guys say they made a pact--- agreeing to stick around.  But from now on they'd be looking out for each other. No more private meetings in Gemase Simmons' bedroom.

But if the guys thought they were able to protect themselves from the TV host's alleged advances--what about the girls?

Well that same night, a female contestant told the others that she was worried. She confessed that she'd had unwanted sexual encounter with Gemase before the taping began-- and now said she was afraid he would try to be alone with her again.

The young woman didn't want to be interviewed on camera, but she told Dateline the encounter happened during a meeting at the host's apartment. She says Gemase told her to come by to discuss an upcoming modeling shoot.  She says he then asked her to strip to her underwear for  what he called a "cosmetic exam," a full-body skin check he said was necessary to book the job.

*Female contestant: "Cosmetic exam." Like--

Hansen: And you--

Female contestant: Where he had to touch, basically--

Another female contestant: Touch her.

Hansen:  What did he do exactly?

Sabrina Griffin: He violated her.  He touched her in her private parts.

That 18-year-old contestant had been participating in the taping so far, but now told the others that she wanted out.

Gigi Freeman: She was traumatized. We went in the bathroom. And she called her boyfriend. And he got her out of there.

Hansen: And she was gone?

Female contestant: Yeah.

When the sun rose that next morning, one contestant was gone... those who remained were rattled. But there was something else wrong, a new twist none of them anticipated...

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