Years passed, and Jonathan released a second book of my images, then a third. He had another show at the same gallery. I looked him up online occasionally; I almost felt like I was checking in on a part of me, the part of me he now owned. For years, while I built a career, he’d kept that Emily in the drawers of his creaky old house, waiting to whore her out. It was intoxicating to see what he’d done with this part of me he’d stolen.
I found an extensive new interview with him, and my chest tightened when I saw the headline: “Jonathan Leder Reveals Details of His Emily Ratajkowski Shoot （NSFW）。” The article began with his description of how we’d come to shoot together. He managed to make himself sound like a sought-after photographer and me some random model who had been desperate to shoot with him. “I had worked with over 500 models by that point in my career,” he said. “And I can tell you that Emily Ratajkowski … was one of the most comfortable models I had ever worked with in terms of her body. She was neither shy or self-conscious in any way. To say she enjoyed being naked is an understatement. I don’t know if it empowered her or she enjoyed the attention.”
I felt dizzy as I wondered the same thing. What does true empowerment even feel like? Is it feeling wanted? Is it commanding someone’s attention? “We had a lot of discussions about music, art, the industry, and the creative process,” Jonathan said in the interview. “She was very pleasant to speak with, and very intelligent and well-spoken, and cultured. That, more than anything, in my opinion, set her apart from so many other models.” I felt myself on the carpet of Jonathan’s living room, the texture of it rubbing into my skin as I posed and talked about art-making, and felt a deep twinge of shame. I promised myself that I wouldn’t look him up anymore.
At the end of 2020, Jonathan published yet another book of the photos, this one hardbound. I’ve often stood in my kitchen and stared at myself in the large Richard Prince piece, contemplating whether I should sell it and use the money to sue. I could try to force him to cease production of his books; I could tangle him up in a legal fight that drains us both, but I’m not convinced that spending any more of my resources on Jonathan would be money well spent. Eventually, Jonathan will run out of “unseen” crusty Polaroids, but I will remain as the real Emily; the Emily who owns the high-art Emily, and the one who wrote this essay, too. She will continue to carve out control where she can find it.
Pamela
S WAS LATE, as usual.
In our first month of dating, S had announced that he was going to make sure I always knew where he was. He’d held his iPhone in his palm, screen facing outward so I could see it. He pressed on my contact and, with an intentional and animated tap of his finger, hit “Share location.”
“See,” he’d said. “No secrets.”
From then on, whenever I opened the map on my phone, S’s picture would appear in a small icon on the screen.
This gesture had surprised me. Of all the things I wanted to know about S, his exact location at any given moment was fairly low on the list. Still, I’d taken it as an offering, a sign of his willingness to share in a more general sense: his life, his emotions, his experiences.
Nearly three years later, I’d often find myself using his shared location to figure out when he’d actually arrive to meet me, since his own estimates were usually off.
S was born and raised in New York and inexperienced at navigating the freeways and traffic patterns of LA.
“Just don’t bother trying to go anywhere anytime between three thirty p.m. and eight p.m., okay?” I’d explained.
“Okay,” he’d said, putting on his sunglasses and giving me a quick kiss. “I’ll text you when I’m finishing up my day.” S always seemed spread too thin when we were in LA. There were too many meetings, too many phone calls, too much traffic.
It was silly, really, that he was coming back home to the Eastside of Los Angeles from the Westside, since the party was on the Westside and we were already late. I checked S’s location. He was going to be at least another hour, and after texting him, “you’re going to be super fucking late,” I resolved to take my time getting ready. I poured a large glass of red wine, showered, and wrapped my hair in a towel. I added big fat wings of eyeliner to the corners of my eyes, lined my mouth with a deep mauve, applied extra-gooey lip gloss to my lips, and slipped on a black strapless tube dress that clung to my ass with purpose.
I wanted to wear a boot or something casual as a shoe, since this party was hosted by S’s agency, not mine. I didn’t like the idea of appearing too dressed up or too sexy in a crowd of people who, I knew, would treat me like arm candy no matter what I wore. But I couldn’t find a shoe that looked right with the hemline of the tube dress, so I gave up and put on heels with straps that crisscrossed up my ankles and calves. They hurt, but these, I decided after texting pictures to a few friends, were my best option.