Karen Mulder Returns to Public View After Nearly Two Decades

Anyone passing by the ornate Church of Saint-Roch in Paris this past April might have noticed a gathering of well-known names leaving a funeral service inside. Among them were Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the former First Lady of France and wife of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, along with film director Luc Besson and Anthony Delon, son of the late actor Alain Delon. Also present at this location in the upscale 1st arrondissement was Karen Mulder, the tall former Dutch supermodel, walking beside her daughter Anna, who was then just 17 years old. They had come to mourn Jean-Yves Le Fur, a property developer and publisher who passed away at age 59 from cancer after being close friends with Mulder for many years. The mother and daughter looked the part in their black attire and blonde hair, but what stood out more was that this marked the first time in nearly 25 years that Mulder had been seen on camera in a public place outside her private circle and favorite Paris cafes.

Her last major step back into the spotlight occurred briefly in 2007 before she effectively vanished from view. That disappearance followed an interview in 2001 where she made claims so damaging to the industry they were never aired on French television chat show Tout Le Monde En Parle. At age 32, she accused powerful men of drugging and raping her while she worked as a model. These allegations included high-ranking politicians and police officers. The host of the program dismissed her story as a paranoid delirium and deleted the recording, yet leaks ensured the details spread anyway. Shockingly, after appearing on that show, Mulder's sister Saskia brought her to a psychiatric clinic for five months. Upon leaving, she recanted her accusations, calling them a cry for help instead. She has rarely spoken since then, leaving many wondering if any truth existed behind her original statements until now.

Now at age 57, Mulder broke that silence this week with an interview in German Vogue where the magazine named her its surprise cover star. The issue featured her in red satin posing next to a sports car. She told the publication she was forced to admit she had lied about everything. "I thought that because I'm famous, people would believe me," she said. Her words reveal she faced horrible and inhumane treatment during her time in the public eye.

Karen wants the bad things to stop. She wants men to stop thinking they can do whatever they want. Those words sound simple now, yet they carry the weight of a bombshell claim that is sure to reopen old wounds and force people to ask if Karen was ever just a young woman having a breakdown or if her statements from years ago were actually a devastating look at sexual exploitation in the entertainment world long before #MeToo arrived.

William Rutten, a prominent Dutch celebrity photographer who worked with Karen shortly after she left the hospital and has kept in touch since, believes that is exactly what happened. This week he told reporters his view that recent events emboldened her to speak out again. He points to new exposures of the dark side of modeling and the public outcry over the government files on Jeffrey Epstein as factors that made women take these accusations more seriously.

Karen, who is now 57, broke her silence unexpectedly in an interview with German Vogue. The magazine named her a surprise cover star, showing her in red satin next to a sports car. In that interview she claimed she had been telling the truth all along. Rutten told Dutch TV that people must not forget this woman was the first to address abuse in modeling and because of it she was forcibly committed and silenced. He said she was called crazy, admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and paid a very heavy price for speaking up.

To understand how extraordinary this reassessment is, one has to go back to the start of her rise and fall. Karen grew up with Saskia, now a talent agent in London, alongside parents Ben, a tax inspector, and Marijke, a secretary, in the small Dutch town of Voorburg. She was discovered at age 15 after sending a photo to the Elite model agency while on holiday in France in 1985. By the late 1980s her willowy 5ft 10in figure walked catwalks for designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, and Versace.

Throughout the 1990s she became a fully anointed supermodel alongside industry giants such as Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell. She appeared on hundreds of magazine covers including Vogue and the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Her best friend was fellow model Carla Bruni. In an industry known for being fickle, she earned a reputation for level-headedness. A Mail on Sunday fashion editor named Brenda Polan recalled in 2001 that Karen was very grounded and charming. Polan expressed surprise at the time that it should be her who suffered such a poignant fate. Later Polan remembered how Karen turned up on time for interviews, was utterly charming, showed no sign of a hangover, and had no evidence of bad habits.

When Karen retired from modeling in 2000 at age 31 she hinted all was not well. She said in an interview that she did not know who she was as a person and that inside she felt worse from day to day. Then in October 2001 came those astonishing allegations. Invited on to the French chat show to talk about whether the modeling industry exploited young girls, Karen claimed she had been repeatedly drugged and raped by former members of Elite. She also said she was forced to sleep with people against her will to secure better contracts. Among those named was a senior member of European royalty.

Gerald Marie, the Elite agency owner who represented Karen Mulder, is Linda Evangelista's former husband. He currently faces multiple serious charges involving rape and human trafficking. Marie has denied every single accusation against him.

In October 1994, a well-known photo captured Karen alongside Carla Bruni, Nadja Auermann, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Helena Christensen in Paris. The claims that surfaced were incredibly explosive. At the same time, Karen's appearance looked very fragile. Programme producers decided they could not air the show because of this situation. They also worried deeply about her emotional state. Consequently, they contacted her family directly.

Saskia took her sister to a psychiatric hospital within just a few days. Her distraught parents flew from their home to Paris. An anxious and emotional Ben gave an interview to a Dutch journalist there. He suggested several factors had caused his daughter's breakdown. These included depression and cocaine use. The previous month, Karen had contacted the police with her own claims.

Ben revealed they began suspecting something after searching her house in Paris. They found exercise books and notepads filled with notes. She wrote down confused thoughts and delusions she was experiencing at that moment. It was terrible what they read inside those pages. She accused everyone around her and everything she could think of. Ben described his daughter as completely burnt out, both mentally and physically, by life in the top tier of the modelling world. He also suggested her sessions with a psychiatrist worsened her condition instead of helping it.

The treatment did not help her; instead, it sent her into a downward spiral. Karen echoed these sentiments later when she left the hospital. She gave an interview referring to her claims as a cry for help. It seemed to me that the whole world was against me and I was trying to make myself heard. She told the respected French magazine Paris Match about how she felt isolated.

Yet her troubles did not end there. A year later, reports surfaced that Karen had attempted to take her own life. Saskia insisted media accounts had been overblown. Karen is doing OK, she told a British newspaper. She is not unconscious and she's not in a coma. We've been in contact, and we have all been supporting her 100 per cent. Either way, this marked the start of a gradual retreat from the spotlight for Karen.

Although she released the pop album Karen Mulder in 2004, it failed to make a significant impact on mainstream music charts. She made only one surprise return to the Paris catwalk in 2007. This appearance was for the haute couture French fashion house Dior to mark its 60th anniversary. Around that same time she was photographed on a yacht in the Mediterranean. She was holidaying with British model Kate Moss and her then boyfriend, musician Jamie Hince.

Aside from Le Fur's funeral in 2024, her only other excursion into the spotlight was unintentional. In 2009 it emerged she had spent a night in police custody following an accusation of harassment by her female aesthetic surgeon. Karen, who was 39 at the time, was said to have directed vicious telephone calls at the medic. The doctor has not been named. She also sent text messages calling him the anti-Christ. It is understood the calls referred to a cosmetic procedure about which she was unhappy and wanted it reversed.

Karen was eventually released under caution, although no further action was taken against her. Since then she has kept a remarkably low profile. She remains a regular sight at upmarket cafes and restaurants in the Triangle d'Or of Paris. This is an expensive area around the Avenue des Champs-Élysées where she owns a 19th-century apartment. Her romantic life meanwhile has also remained largely under wraps.

After many years of friendship with Le Fur during the 1990s until he passed away, Rutten moved on to relationships with financier Julio Santo Domingo and a music video director known only as Martin. She has never revealed her daughter's father publicly. After Anna was born in 2006, she said she wanted to raise the child away from intense media scrutiny.

Despite sharing her mother's striking good looks, Anna shows no interest in following those footsteps into modeling or photography. Rutten explained this situation recently during a television interview where he also discussed his late friend's Vogue cover story. The funny thing is that she says her daughter wants nothing to do with the industry at all. She won't work in that field for sure.

Karen remains close today to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, director Luc Besson, and actress Emmanuelle Seigner. A source told the Daily Mail that Karen keeps a low profile but stays very much on the social and media scene in Paris. She has many celebrity friends and enjoys spending time with them just as she always has.

What prompted her to break cover so spectacularly this month remains something of a puzzle. She is unlikely to need money since she owns property in Paris and the South of France along with stakes in a property management firm. However, last November she set up a new media content and publishing company called KM Development. This move led to speculation that her decision to appear on Vogue could be the opening salvo in an ongoing campaign to call out wrongdoing in the modeling and entertainment industry.

One senior publishing insider in France told the Daily Mail this week that some people wonder whether she is going to write a book soon. Either way, whatever she intended, Karen's decision to become a cover girl again at age 57 seems unlikely to be an isolated episode. Rutten stated he does not know if she sees it as a comeback. But it is also possible that the appearance gave her a taste of things and she will be back for more projects later. Additional reporting by Peter Allen in Paris rounded out the story.