On June 1, 2026, HBO premiered “Bring Me The Beauties: A Model Cult,” a gripping three-part documentary directed by Chris Smith that peels back the glamorous veneer of the 1980s and ’90s fashion world to reveal a hidden, haunting story. At its center is Hoyt Richards, once the world’s highest-paid male model and a familiar face in luxury menswear campaigns, whose secret life as a member of a Manhattan cult called Eternal Values is now coming into full view.
Richards’ tale is almost too strange to believe. According to Page Six, he was “supermodel by day, cult member by night.” During the height of his career, rubbing elbows with icons like Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Fabio, Richards was leading a double life. While the world saw him jet-setting to Paris and Milan, back home in New York City, he was sleeping on the floor of a Midtown apartment, handing over nearly every dollar he earned to Eternal Values and its enigmatic leader, Frederick Von Mierers.
The story begins on a Nantucket beach in the late 1970s. Richards, then a 16-year-old from a regular Pennsylvania family, met Von Mierers—born Fred Meyers in Brooklyn—who had reinvented himself as an upper-crust Manhattan socialite. Von Mierers dazzled Richards and other young seekers with his knowledge of astrology, world religions, and especially his New Age claims. He told followers, “I was a walk-in,” insisting that an alien consciousness from the star Arcturus had taken up residence in his body to prepare humanity for a coming apocalypse, as reported by Vanity Fair and highlighted in the documentary.
Richards stayed in touch with Von Mierers throughout his time at Princeton University. After graduating in 1985, he was swept into the cult’s inner circle just as his modeling career took off. “If I hadn’t lived it, I wouldn’t have believed [my life story] myself,” Richards told Page Six. The cult, which Von Mierers called Eternal Values, targeted attractive, vulnerable young people arriving in New York. Seminars were held at a Park Avenue church, and teachings were broadcast on Manhattan public access TV in the dead of night. Von Mierers even listed himself in the Social Register, boasted of ties to the Vanderbilts, and claimed to have inherited millions—though these were all part of a carefully crafted persona.
Life inside Eternal Values was anything but glamorous. Richards explained, “I would take enough money to pay my bills, and everything else I would hand over to Freddy.” Over the course of fifteen years, he estimates he gave between 4 and 5 million dollars to the cult. Despite his outward success, Richards felt isolated. “I obviously could not [tell my peers] what I was involved with,” he admitted. The cult discouraged friendships with outsiders, and Richards described the constant feeling of “not being transparent and lying to everyone at all times.”
Von Mierers’ hold over his followers was total. By the mid-1980s, he had begun preaching that he was an alien “walk-in” and that his followers were chosen to survive and lead after an impending doomsday. At first, he demanded celibacy from his followers, but this later gave way to a more sinister environment. Richards recalled, “there was a lot of sexual abuse” within the group. Despite moments when his critical thinking broke through—“I just knew what was happening was wrong… potentially dangerous and bad”—Richards remained, convinced that his “spiritual life” was the secret to his modeling success. “That kind of ‘magical thinking’ is common in the cult survivor space,” he reflected.
By March 1990, the facade began to crack. Manhattan prosecutors were investigating Von Mierers for selling nearly $2 million worth of overpriced gemstones, which he peddled as spiritual cures. Vanity Fair posed the question: “How could an obvious phony like this convince so many smart, attractive young people in New York that he was for real?” That same month, Von Mierers died at age 43 from AIDS-related illnesses, having concealed his diagnosis even as he continued to see male prostitutes near his East 54th Street apartment.
Yet, Eternal Values did not dissolve with its leader’s death. Instead, the cult became harsher and more paranoid, relocating from New York to a lake house in North Carolina. Richards, still allowed to travel for modeling, began to see the cracks in Von Mierers’ apocalyptic predictions. “Freddie had predicted there were going to be these storms and tidal waves and all these things leading up to this apocalypse,” Richards told The Baltimore Sun. “But I’m sitting in London or Paris, and I’m like, ‘Uh, nothing’s happening.’”
The turning point came when Richards secretly fell in love—a forbidden act in the group. When this relationship was discovered, the cult dictated a cold fax for him to send to his girlfriend, ending things abruptly. “That mistreatment of someone else was a really good indicator that unlocked the mind control,” Richards said. Witnessing such cruelty, he began to question everything. “My critical thinking started to come back, and say, ‘I don’t think you really belong here.’”
Leaving Eternal Values proved harrowing. The first time Richards tried to flee, members dragged him back. The second time, he barely escaped the property. On his third attempt, he made it out for good, spending a week with his parents to start healing. He then moved to Los Angeles, where his friend and fellow model Fabio Lanzoni gave him sanctuary. “Fabio always had this open-door policy with me,” Richards recalled. “I literally show up at his doorstep, and I’m like a shadow of what he knows, and he could tell something severe had happened.” Richards stayed for almost a year, slowly rebuilding his sense of self and eventually reconnecting with other former cult members to unpack their shared experiences.
Director Chris Smith, whose previous works include “Operation Varsity Blues” and “Fyre,” was drawn to Richards’ story because it defied stereotypes about cult followers. “There were successful models, Ivy League-educated [people], business professionals. It wasn’t the types of people that an audience might assume would be followers in that sense,” Smith told The Baltimore Sun. The documentary explores not just Richards’ personal odyssey, but how a charismatic con man built a machine that outlived him, ensnaring even the most outwardly successful.
Today, Richards lives in Los Angeles and is engaged to the woman who, years ago, helped him rediscover his heart. He’s become an outspoken advocate, sharing his journey to help others recognize the warning signs of cultic relationships. “That word ‘cult’ is so triggering as far as the way the media’s painted cults over the years,” he said. “But if I say a cultic relationship, what I’m referring to is that framework where, in essence, you’ve unconsciously given your power away to someone else.”
“Bring Me The Beauties” is more than a cautionary tale about one man’s lost years; it’s a sobering look at how even the brightest stars can be drawn into darkness, and how the search for meaning can sometimes lead us astray. Richards’ willingness to speak openly—warts and all—offers a rare, unvarnished glimpse into the complex aftermath of cult life, and the long road to reclaiming one’s own story.