Presley Gerber's Struggles, Harry & Meghan's Ongoing Chaos, & Charles Spencer's Book Backlash

The Nerve with Maureen Callahan

The episode explores the tragic death of Presley Gerber and the systemic exploitation within the modeling industry. Hosts Maureen Callahan a

Key takeaways

• The death of Presley Gerber highlights a 'sickness' in the modeling culture involving extreme pressure and lack of adult supervision.
• Rob Shuter recounts firsthand experiences of widespread drug use, including cocaine, being openly available at fashion events.

Main topics

• Presley Gerber's death
• Modeling industry exploitation

Notable quotes

The wolves are not at the enough. They're in the studio.

Conclusion

A scathing critique of celebrity culture, exposing the gap between pub

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) you Speaker 4 (0:02) Hello and welcome to your Friday edition of The Nerve. I am your host, Maureen Callahan. So much to get to today. Our favorite celebrity reporter, friend of The Nerve, Rob Shooter, is back from vacation. Believe it or not, he was in the UK for two weeks, so he's got lots to tell us about the gruesome twosome. But first, first, there is one story dominating. this week and that is the tragic death of presley gerber son of cindy crawford and randy gerber we are going to have a conversation on the nerve with rob that is not being had really at all in the mainstream media nobody's digging nobody's digging in the way that we're going to dig um this story goes beyond Speaker 4 (1:02) the sort of celebrity scandal version of it. Like it goes, I think to a really, really stubborn sickness in the culture. And, um, it's a sickness that even A-list celebrities are not immune from. In fact, they, they may be more. Speaker 4 (1:27) likely to believe it, to believe the lie of this sickness than the rest of us are. Like the rest of us on the outside of it, you know what I mean? Then we've got more on the gruesome twosome. Meghan Markle spotted by paparazzi in the Cotswolds. Wonder how that happened. Wonder how. And then Prince Harry was over here in the United States giving a speech until his prompter went down. It's amazing. We've got the actual footage. We've got the actual footage. We're going to talk about Charles Spencer and the mess that his book is in, the mess that he is in. We have tons to get to. We've got some housekeeping later in the show. We're going to talk about another celebrity who I swear these people, it's just the way the wind blows. Trotted out their Nepo spawn. to begin the entrance into the culture, advertising her to the media and entertainment establishment at large. Here's your next star. Do with this star what you will, my interpretation. Then Presley Gerber dies, and this celebrity has a whole other explanation. She has no idea how her child even got on that red carpet. Troublemaker intel. Troublemaker direct reporting. regarding repeat offenders. This is an incredibly great, smart, dishy, packed, incredible show we've got for you today. And so we ask troublemakers, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go. Speaker 4 (3:16) Fitting meaningful physical activity into a demanding schedule often feels impossible, but staying active doesn't need to be complicated. Not with the LifePro Waiver Vibration Plate, which makes daily movement simple and accessible. Just 10 minutes on the waiver burns between 50 and 100 calories, delivering benefits comparable to a brisk 15-minute walk in less time with zero joint impact. 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And, you know, you're back just in time because this one story has really landed in a way that I mean, I I I'm a little bit surprised because he really wasn't that public a person, though born to very public people. Presley Gerber, you're exclusive. This. Poor 27-year-old young man who died of what looks like an overdose. Your exclusive Cindy Crawford, wracked with guilt, blames herself. Your source says Cindy is replaying everything. She knew how brutal this business could be. The rejection, scrutiny, partying, and temptation. Now she keeps asking herself, I knew all of this. So why didn't I do more to protect him from it? Rob, talk to us. Speaker 7 (6:08) Yeah, just heartbreaking. First of all, I've missed you too. It has been a couple of weeks. You'll be surprised how many troublemakers you have made in the United Kingdom. My family are huge fans of yours and this show. And it was a lovely time to spend some time with them. But I do love myself some good reporting, so I can't help myself. I was on the phone through almost every family dinner. They got very annoyed with me, but I'm glad to deliver it all to you. So this is a major, major story. Cindy is absolutely wrapped with grief and questions. And I think that... This is not that uncommon. Parents I've spoken to who have lost children always ask, could I have done something different? Could I have changed this? Is it something that I have done? There's a terrible guilt there. And that's what Cindy is going through at the moment. Although it should be pointed out that her son was just 16 years old when he signed his first modeling contract. He Speaker 4 (7:08) was modeling by his own report sooner than that. Speaker 7 (7:11) Yeah, yeah. He got Speaker 4 (7:12) into it at about... 15 and we will in a minute take a look at some of his own speaking directly on social media, but he was a very tender age when he got into it. The kind where you need a parent to... Give permission. Yeah. Speaker 7 (7:28) And that's the really troubling part of this. Nobody knew the model in business better than Cindy Crawford. Even though she was a superstar, she did not start off as a superstar. She started off as a young working model and the things that she saw and the process that she went to. Wasn't pretty. I know that because I used to work for Naomi Campbell. I worked for Tyra Banks. I've worked for Molly Sims. I've worked with a lot of celebrities, Maureen, in different genres, in the rap world, in the acting world, in the music world. The genre that was the most dangerous, the one that I have the most horror stories about is the fashion business. Speaker 4 (8:06) Yes. And I just want to pause you right there because I'm thinking of Linda Evangelista. who among the supermodels of the 90s was considered the most high fashion, the most editorial, the most chameleon-like. And I believe she even had horror stories about, you know, the heads of these international modeling agencies getting these girls fresh off the plane into Europe. And, you know, rape was extremely common. Drugging them was extremely common. You know, these like rags to riches stories, like behind the scenes, the modeling industry is fucking... Speaker 7 (8:40) It's brutal. It's brutal, Maureen. I've seen the world of rap stars, and it's not as brutal as the modeling business. Drugs were everywhere. When I was around the modeling business, drugs were not something that were done in bathrooms. They were done in dressing rooms. They were done in public. They were done in clubs. They were done in restaurants. And Speaker 4 (9:00) they're also just an open secret. So I had a friend who was very close to a big 90s supermodel. And that supermodel was very open. The only way she could maintain her career was to basically be on speed like the whole time. You just have to take drugs to suppress your appetite. There is no other way. Speaker 7 (9:21) Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 4 (9:22) It's Speaker 7 (9:22) shocking, isn't it? I remember, too, I was working, I think, as with Jennifer Lopez at Pia. 1959, the big complex in Chelsea Piers. And she was doing a cover of a magazine. And I took a phone call, so I stepped out of the studio. And there was four very handsome, very young models who were smiling at me. And then I went into the bathroom and one of them followed me in and offered me sex to make them a star. And it broke my heart, obviously. I didn't go through with it, but it really made me sad that this kid... who was probably in his early 20s, maybe his late teens, was so willing to sell, not sell it, I wasn't buying, but to give me his body in order for me to give him something back in return. And then let's be really honest, one of the most shocking things that I witnessed in the fashion business was Jeffrey Epstein. He was backstage. He wasn't in the audience. A friend of mine reminded me that in the modeling business, in the fashion business, the wolves are not at the gates. They're in the studio. Oh, they're in the Speaker 4 (10:25) C-suite. Les Wexner had a Victoria's Secret. You know, that private island where he was rumored to be trafficking young women. Speaker 7 (10:36) It's shocking. And once again, this is not the exception. Every time I went. to a fashion show, there was something there that was clearly wrong. And this was the environment that a lot of young models grew up in. I'm not saying the whole of the modelling business is rotten. It's not. But the actual, the people in the business are not all rotten, but the structure of the business itself. When you have older men who are responsible for young people's careers, boys and girls, it is an equality of power that I've witnessed firsthand. Then add drugs to that. Then add the exploitation of that. Then add the sexuality to that. It's surprising to me. that there are not more Presley Gerbers out there. It is surprising to me. Speaker 4 (11:23) It's a great point. I think, too, of Terry Richardson, who in the aughts, everybody knew. Who was that scumbag who was the head of American Apparel? Yes, yes, yes. Everybody knew. It became like porn in the aughts. in the aughts. Fashion in the aughts became just like outright softcore porn. The 90s were heroin chic. And it was always like, no, those are just images. It's just art. Like, don't be so stupid and literal minded, all you rubes out there. These people aren't on heroin. Guess what? They were on heroin. And it took the death of Davide Sorrenti, who was the younger brother of the superstar photographer Mario Sorrenti, who was at for a long time, the boyfriend of Kate Moss. I'm not saying anything about Kate here at all, but they too, they came up on that Calvin Klein, that ad campaign. Davide died of a heroin overdose. And he at the time was the boyfriend of the model, Jamie King, who has been struggling mightily since she got on the scene. And it was Davide's overdose that caused President Bill Clinton, then President Bill Clinton, held a presser in the White House and told the fashion industry to knock it off. And that was it. Anna Wintour declared a moratorium on heroin chic. And in came Giselle Bundchen, an athletic, healthy, glowy looking models who ate food. Yeah. Speaker 7 (12:41) And we all seem to have forgotten this. And it's so obvious. And I think that the takeaway from Presley's tragic passing for me is we've got to look at the modeling industry. We've got to look at this business. I'm not saying modeling caused his death, but it certainly added to the complexities. of this young man's life. He was being asked to make decisions at 15 and 16 that he shouldn't have been allowed to make. He needed an adult in the room. And the hard part of this story for me, and I think for Cindy too, is that she knew it. You can't say that she was fresh off the boat. She was not a housewife on Long Island whose son wanted to be a model. She was the model in business. It doesn't get much higher. But Speaker 4 (13:21) Rob, also, I'm just going to say, okay, this is an anecdotal thing. My... goddaughter, one of my goddaughters. People were circling her. This is a girl from a normal family. They have nothing to do with media whatsoever. People circling her as young as seven or eight. Your daughter could be a model. Your daughter could be a model. Her parents, no fucking way. She's not going near it. And if it was something she so badly wanted to do, they realized they would have to be with her every single second, never to be left alone. with anybody and what kind of a way is that to live or to do to a child? You know what I mean? So I think the rest of us who feel like our spidey senses are like, that is a dark fucking world are, have been right for a long time. Speaker 7 (14:07) We're absolutely right on this one. Another element of this that I find just so sad is that Presley knew he wasn't a great model. He knew he was getting these campaigns because of his mum. It was never really about him. And so to enter a business where you know you're not really wanted, you're not there because of your own success. And not only was he in his mum's shadow, he was in his sister's shadow. His sister was a much more successful model than him. I wish he had been encouraged. I wish he had picked a different type of business. He was there because he was Cindy Crawford's son. He was getting campaigns that other models wanted. They did not have the family name. So within the modeling world, he was bullied a little bit. Even though he was getting the benefits of being a world-class model, he was there for reasons that really upset, rightfully so, other people who had worked really, really hard at this. So add this really dark, toxic environment to somebody that's probably full of self-doubt, that probably knows they're not really wanted. What did we expect? What sort of result did it? anybody expect. And, Speaker 4 (15:16) you know, we're going to look at Presley in one moment talking about his life before modeling and his life after modeling. And I, you know, to your point, he had the looks. It wasn't that like you couldn't take a bad photo of him, but it takes so much more than that to make a great model. It really, really does. And part of it has to be the drive, the will, you know, one of the things that made Kate Moss such a supermodel. And every photographer who worked with her would say this. A lot of it was her personality, her individual charisma. She had imperfections that, you know, others would have fixed. She once asked somebody, should I fix my teeth? And she was told, no, your teeth make you individual and special. Here's Presley on his life before and his life after. This was published to his Instagram account. under his Mental Health Mondays series on July 29th, 2025. Here we go. Speaker 3 (16:14) I grew up a very active kid. By, I mean, since by like first, second grade, I was doing soccer, you know, I was baseball. Speaker 3 (16:27) I really, I think it started with just like soccer, baseball, oh, basketball too. So it was land sports. I was land sports in the beginning and then middle school came around. So that was like the first five years. And then middle school came around and I started surfing. I started playing water polo and along with water polo on the off season and ideally during the season, you're also on swim team just for conditioning. So that's a little background on me. This was like, you know, five to seven days a week. I was in a body of water for minimum of three hours. Some days I was in the water for like 10 hours, you know, just getting out to eat. And then you're back in for water polo practice and your water polo practice is over, whatever. But I just think it's, there's something to be said about when I started working, which was like around the age of 14. And I started traveling and I stopped doing like all this. I was maybe in New York shooting something or I had to do a thing in Europe. This is more like 15, 16. What I'm trying to say is the less activity that was in my life, especially for me, the ocean, the more medication I found having to be integrated into my life. The quality of life rapidly decreased with a decrease in... natural endorphins and dopamine and that kind of stuff. You know, I think that for a lot of us, this might be, you know, simple math, but for me, it took 10 years of looking back at my life being like, well, what changed? What changed? A lot of the time people would always ask, like, you were such a happy kid. What happened to you? And, you know, I think it's a little bit of a tough way to ask that question, but what happened was life happened and I wasn't able to Worry about one thing which was my next meal and then get back in the ocean like I had to start making money I had to start I got a job I mean I was working at a smoothie place by the time I was 14 and I'm not saying that oh I should not you know They should have just my parents should just let me serve all day and da da da da da What would the outcome have been? I don't know but I can say for sure and I've still firmly believe by this because there's data, activity is important. And if you're someone who likes dopamine, adrenaline and physical activity is a very important thing to integrate in your life. And I think that you will be a lot happier if you do it. Rob, Speaker 4 (19:06) that is a long clip, but it's remarkable. And I wanted to show it in its entirety because There's a part of the story that's missing to me. There's a before, a very happy water polo swimmer, surfer kid, loves being in the water and the sunshine and nature and is getting a lot out of it. You hear the passion in his voice. He's literally like the ocean, the ocean. There is an after. We are working. We are in New York. We are in Europe. We seem to be alone. We seem to be not having our... We're not happy. We're 15, 16. What happened in the middle? Because what I'm not hearing is modeling was my passion and I was willing to give up my life in water sports for that. Speaker 7 (19:57) Yeah, it's not here and it's not there. First of all, that clip is remarkable. I had never seen that before. And thank you for showing the full clip. That's the evidence. If I was a prosecutor, if I was going to go to court with this case, I'd just play that video. Everything's in that video. And the tricky part of that video for me is not that he wanted to mooch off his mum and dad. He was 14. He was. Fourteen. Had he been 45 and he was surfing every day, I'd say get a job. If he'd been 25 and searching every day, I'd say, dude, you've got to pay the bills. He was a... 14 years old. He said that in that video. What 14-year-old thinks they have to give up their passion to go and make money? There's something really wrong here. His dad sold the company he owns with George Clooney for a billion dollars. His mom is a multimillionaire, one of the most successful supermodels of all time. And he's worrying at 14 about paying the bills. There is something about this story that just does not... add up. And when you see him talk about how happy he once was, this was not a kid who was born miserable. There are a lot of kids out there that struggle from the day they're born. You've probably met them. You've probably known them at school. They've just got the issues. They've got the demons and it breaks your heart. And there's probably very little you can do. This wasn't that story. He was a happy young man. And then his life changed. And guess when his life changed? He just said it when he started modeling. There's a lot of questions here. There Speaker 4 (21:34) are a lot of questions here. And we're going to play one other with him before I want to talk to you a bit about Kaya. But, you know, it's not as if, and I think this specific differentiation is important. It's not as if he was describing himself as like a beach bum. as like a certain kind of affluent Malibu casualty where like you're surfing all day, you're smoking weed, you're drinking beer. That's it. That's your life. He's talking about very disciplined athleticism. Water polo is extremely difficult. When he's not doing water polo, he's swimming for conditioning. This is somebody who is athletically inclined. Here is Presley talking about, again, his... I want to say that his mother was a model from a very young age and reached the top of it. So she knows what goes on there. His father made his name in nightlife in New York city. And then in LA and in Vegas. And if you don't think there's a seedy underbelly there, I mean,