Hoyt Richards, the World’s First Male Supermodel, Lost $4.5M to a Doomsday Alien Sex Cult — Now He’s Telling All

Highlights

• Hoyt Richards was the world’s first male supermodel, working for Versace, Valentino, Ralph Lauren, and Burberry.

• Richards lost an estimated $4 million and nearly his mind to the Eternal Values cult, whose members believed they were aliens from the star Arcturus.

• A new three-part HBO docuseries, Bring Me the Beauties, chronicles his decades-long entanglement with the group and premieres June 1.

He was tall, blond, and impossibly handsome — a Princeton graduate who could command $15,000 a day on a photo shoot. But behind the glossy campaigns and celebrity friendships, Hoyt Richards was hiding one of fashion’s darkest secrets.

Richards was the quintessential all-American guy. After earning a football scholarship to Princeton, he became the world’s first male supermodel, jet-setting across the globe for campaigns with Versace, Valentino, Ralph Lauren, and Burberry, and posing for legendary photographers including Helmut Newton and Steven Meisel.

He worked and socialized with the era’s A-list models, including Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell. He was, no doubt, the first male supermodel.

Yet beneath the glamour, Richards harbored a harrowing secret. For years, he was enmeshed within a shadowy religious sect called Eternal Values, which kept him psychologically enslaved with convoluted forms of love and abuse, reassurance, and disapproval.

Hoyt Richards at the New York premiere of HBO’s ‘Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult’ at The Museum of Art and Design on May 20, 2026. Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/INSTARimages

A Beach Encounter That Changed Everything

In the summer of 1978, a 16-year-old Richards was sitting on the beach in Nantucket when a man laid down his towel, sat next to him, and started talking. “I had heard about him from my friend, this guy who was from New York and was into astrology and ancient religions,” Richards recalled.

That man was Frederick von Mierers — and the encounter would alter the course of Richards’ life forever.

Von Mierers was a Manhattan socialite whose spiritual teachings and larger-than-life personality quickly drew Richards in. The group, Eternal Values, preyed on ambitious young models and professionals in New York’s fashion scene. Von Mierers cultivated influence through New Age philosophy, bizarre claims of being an alien “walk-in” from the planet Arcturus, and expensive “healing” rituals.

Von Mierers believed in impending doom — that he and his fellow aliens had been sent to earth to help earthlings, an intergalactic team of emergency responders. As the leader of Eternal Values, it was his responsibility to find the others and teach them about their true origins and noble calling.

Targeting the Beautiful and the Brilliant

Von Mierers, who believed in a “master race,” courted attractive young people. His Nantucket house guests recall being sent out to scour the beach for good-looking recruits, handing out invitations to the finest physical specimens they could find.

Von Mierers purposefully surrounded himself with good-looking Ivy League graduates like Richards, betting that no one would believe that these attractive, intelligent individuals could be brainwashed. “The story of Hoyt Richards is a cautionary tale,” Richards himself has said.

The financial toll was staggering. While attending Princeton, Richards was scouted by Ford Model Agency and quickly became a highly paid male model. After graduation, he moved to New York, where he gave almost all of the money he had directly to Eternal Values. “My career was taking off, and I thought it was because I was involved with this group and had made a conscious choice to commit myself to God and to living a spiritual life,” he told Rolling Stone. At one point, he was making close to $90,000 a month — and von Mierers got pretty much everything.

The cult controlled Richards and pocketed an estimated $4.5 million of his earnings for almost two decades.

Sex, Secrets, and Scandal

The group’s activities extended well beyond spiritual guidance, involving drug-fueled sexcapades, an illicit gem business, and a charismatic leader who claimed to be an extraterrestrial.

Former Eternal Values member Paul Hinton says in the documentary that von Mierers’ teachings implied that he was above sexual desires, but the leader would secretly sleep with male sex workers. Hinton believes this behavior eventually exposed von Mierers to HIV-AIDS.

The rest of the world was about to find out about von Mierers and the cult in a shocking Vanity Fair exposé. As Richards narrates, that’s when things truly unraveled. “Everyone was talking about” the 1990 article, which detailed “the Ford models” connection to the group.

Von Mierers died in 1990, but the damage he had done to Richards and dozens of other followers lasted for years.

Hoyt Richards and Chris Smith at the New York premiere of HBO’s ‘Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult’ at The Museum of Art and Design on May 20, 2026. Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/INSTARimages

HBO Brings the Story to Light

Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult is a three-part documentary series from Emmy-winning director Chris Smith (100 Foot Wave) that chronicles Richards’ decades-long entanglement with Eternal Values.

“I don’t know if we could have made this docuseries without Hoyt or Jackie. Hoyt’s rise in the modeling world was a catalyst for the group as well, but Jackie was really the catalyst of the fall,” Smith told Rolling Stone. “It was her realization that this group is not what it seems and not a healthy environment.”

The docuseries includes never-before-seen archival footage and in-person interviews with former members of Eternal Values, many of whom took years to recover from their relationships with von Mierers.

Richards’ story as a 20-year member of Eternal Values, an apocalyptic, survivalist UFO cult, is harrowing but ultimately empowering. He managed to save himself, process his experiences, and become a successful and fulfilled individual.

Bring Me the Beauties debuts June 1 on HBO and is available to stream on Max.

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