'I was so brainwashed': The 1980s doomsday cult that ensnared the young and beautiful

Led by an enigmatic New York socialite who claimed to be an alien in human form, Eternal Values boasted an elite membership. Now one of its most high-profile ex-followers, former male supermodel Hoyt Richards, is telling his story.

Few people have lived a double life like Hoyt Richards. Back in the 1980s, this classically handsome Princeton graduate was fronting ad campaigns for luxury brands like Ralph Lauren, Dunhill and Donna Karan. Though he has since branched out into acting, film-making and public speaking, Richards is still regularly described as "the world's first male supermodel".

He looked like the epitome of quietly confident masculinity, but when he wasn't jetting somewhere exotic to be photographed by Richard Avedon or Steven Meisel, Richards was a devoted member of a shadowy spiritual cult called Eternal Values. Though it was the subject of a 1990 Vanity Fair exposé by journalist Marie Brenner, Eternal Values has since been roundly forgotten. However, its fascinating origins in the aspirational mid-1980s and slow decline throughout the '90s are now being spotlighted in Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult, a gripping and chilling documentary series that premiered on HBO last month.

This is a true story that no one could dream up. Eternal Values' founder, the well-connected but enigmatic Manhattan socialite Frederick von Mierers, claimed to be an "alien walk-in": an extraterrestrial from the planet Arcturus who had stepped into a human body to spread a message of enlightenment on Earth. His oft-stated mission was to recruit new Arcturian leaders from the human race before a so-called "pole shift" destroyed the planet in 1999.

In effect, this was a doomsday cult with lashings of added glamour. A master of reinvention who was also an inveterate social climber, Von Mierers liked to surround himself with bright young things like models and ambitious young professionals. Strictly speaking, he didn't just want beauties, but anyone who could improve his reputation and financial fortunes.

Born Fred Meyers in working-class Brooklyn – though few knew his true identity at the time – he built his following and the cult’s fortune by selling personalised psychic "life readings" on cassette tape and bespoke gem subscriptions. The prices were high, but Von Mierers claimed his precious stones had healing properties. Jacki Adams, another prominent 1980s supermodel lured in by Eternal Values, told Brenner that she gave the cult leader more than $100,000 (£75,000) for gemstones and apartment renovations he was helping with.

Richards was first targeted by Von Mierers in 1978, nearly a decade before Adams joined Eternal Values in 1987. And he only extricated himself for good in 1999, a full nine years after its founder, whom Richards calls Freddie, died from Aids-related complications. "When Freddie died, I would say that the cult died with him," Richards tells the BBC. "But we carried on in his shadow as this really toxic, dysfunctional family." 

By the time Richards fled Eternal Values in 1999 with help from fellow male supermodel Fabio Lanzoni, membership had dwindled to a few rudderless diehards. Yet to this day, many of Von Mierers’ former followers refuse to believe that they ever were part of a cult.

Richards, now 64, has no such qualms about admitting he was "brainwashed" by Eternal Values' magnetic leader. "I've gone on a 25-year journey of wanting to go more public [about what happened] because I think there's real value in telling this story," Richards says.

How Richards was duped

Much of this value is rooted in Richards being such an unlikely mark. He had a privileged and loving upbringing in suburban Pennsylvania, but his "cultic relationship" with Eternal Values, as Richards describes it, stopped him speaking to his family for 12 years. He was never a physical prisoner, but he says he remained under Von........

© BBC