Bret is a friend I made at an art community in Los Angeles. He wrote a book named The Prince of Darkness.
Initially, the interview was about his experience being a writer, but later I found out his book is based off of his real life experience - he had a relationship with the pedophiliac Hollywood director Bryan Singer at the age of 18.
In this story, he shared how he got into sex trafficking, struggled in it, and how he decided to write a book to unveil the darkness of Hollywood, to spread the light and fight against the darkness.
Trigger warning: pedophile, rape, drug.
Narrator | Bret
Editor & Photographer | Nox
"
There are a lot of crimes and unspoken truth about Los Angeles and the industry. A lot of people came here naïve and didn't know a lot better. I wish my book can guide them through a bit about Los Angeles.
"
When I first got to LA, I was following a dark path.
I didn’t realize how it happened, or if it was my choice. I didn’t have a voice or willpower to stop what was happening. So I became very quiet, overly agreeable. I watched things and observed. I managed to learn a lot of secrets and how the cookie crumbles when it comes to the Hollywood industry.
I need to write this book to get the word out there, and also do it artfully, so that I could be happy with what happened to me by turning it into art.
It was hard to write this book, because I had to relive through it, but it also helped me to get over it and see through all perspectives. Writing it was like a therapy. It lifted all my weight that had burdened me and made me free again.
"
You made me take two types drugs and took advantage of me when I passed out. Do you really think I would do it again when I'm sober?
"
In my book, the naïve, fresh-faced Oliver Rain, that's me, grew up glamorizing the countless songs and movies starring Los Angeles, center stage. I just felt like as a kid, every song took place in LA, and that's just where stuff happened. Because I went to high school in a small town in Arizona, I was attracted to LA when the same reason that brings everyone here.
After I got to LA, I moved into an apartment with a roommate that I had known for a week. I got a job at a tea shop, and then my roommate started to take me to those parties.
Within two months, I've met up with too many wrong people.
I guess it was at one of the parties, the pimp saw me and managed to get my contacts. So I got a call from a stranger, asking me to have lunch in Downtown LA. The random person ended up being a mid-40s man. After lunch, he took me to his apartment in downtown. He got me on molly and I lost track of all my senses. When I woke up, I was being raped by him.
That was the first time such things happened to me.
Later I found out I left some of my belongings at his apartment. When I go get them, he said he wanted to have sex with me. I rejected. He said, you don’t wanna sleep with me because you're not on drugs?
I was like, "You made me take two types drugs and took advantage of me when I passed out. Do you really think I would do it again when I'm sober?"
I ran away from him, but I didn’t know he already gave my number to three other people who are also in the Hollywood circle, and I didn’t know I was going to those predetermined dates.
Then I got a call from a director and I was invited to have lunch at his place. I was only eighteen. I didn’t know what was going to entail.
So I got to his place and saw he had many drawings-- he was a painter himself. But all of his paintings were teenage men. The director looked like 65 years old. He said "let's go to the Jacuzzi" and handed me a bathing suit. So we were going into the hot tub, I mentioned something like "I have seen one of your movies." And he was like, "Oh, cool, thanks."
Then he was like, "What do you want to do, sexually?"
I was eighteen, and he was sixty-five, and it was just so blatant…how do you react to that? Obviously he was bored with the conversation and thinking let's get to the good stuff now.
I was like, I don’t know what makes you think that's ok for you to just do that. So I told him I was not interested in. And he ordered me a car to leave. I never had contacted with him again.
Later I heard back from the pimp; he was mad at me because I didn’t do anything with the director. He was like, "You made me look like an idiot! He could have any friends in the world but no one that's not gonna sleep with him. If he wants to sleep with you, it's your job to do that!"
Then I had to go through two other people. One of them was Bryan Singer, the director that won two Oscars and directed X-men series.
The director threw a party for the pimp's birthday at a nice restaurant. And the pimp invited three 18 year-old boys to please the director. Later they took us to the director's house, and got us on drugs. And it all blurred out. I only remember when I woke up again, there was only me and the director.
I didn't wanna be with the pimp anymore, and I thought it would be safer with the director. Back in hindsight, neither of these would get me anywhere.
A lot of times, I didn’t choose for myself. It was draining the whole process. Sometimes he would get several people to his bedroom, sometimes he would have me watch him with other people, and other times he would give me to his other friends. There're always people coming in and out of his bedroom. Sometimes he would just be watching the TV, and saw some actors, he would call his friends and let them take the actors here.
All these was just so easy for him.
At that time, I lost my job at the tea shop and I couldn’t afford living in a house. A lot of times I would go crash a friend's place. At one point, the director gave me ten thousand dollars to find a place to live, and then it just felt like he owned me.
I didn’t you how you can quit seeing someone that gave you ten thousand dollars. They probably would get angry and have more money to do something bad to you. Especially when you are eighteen, you don’t really know.
I just got trapped in a loop with all the bad decision-making, and watched all the absurd people doing absurd things.
Lots of the victims are homeless people on the streets. People who sent them out to prostitute would get them high with all kinds of drugs. I came out alright, but many ended up died on the streets.
"
It's not saying the whole world is corrupted, but there's definitely people that were easily using positions of power to manipulate different minds of people. There's mind control in certain aspect, especially when drugs are involved.
"
I'm tired of seeing things happening with everyone almost. Especially with the MeToo movement, it not only exposed the directors, but singers, comedians. It's everyone in the industry. They just got away from it for so long since the dawn of Hollywood.
But people had been told so far to ignore the fact that they have a voice, they are told to not stick up to themselves, they are told to look the other way.
So I started writing, because I have seen so much bad stuff going on. I have to get them off my chest.
I don’t care if it's a celebrity or director. It's part of trafficking. It has to stop.
I have to be vocal about it.
My last job was in a kitchen in a restaurant. The manager would stare at the waitresses' butts, and when there's only me left, he would lick his lips like a watermelon. And I said, "Excuse me, sir. Please don't do that." Later I got my manager fired for sexual harassment.
When you are in a position of power like a director rather than being a kitchen manager, you can get away with that kind of behavior. People normalize it, thinking that it's something you have to get used to in this industry. And those bad guys don’t need to be disregarded or thought of a different light because they have so much money.
Money just creates insanity and addiction, and most times turmoil, not a lot of happiness.
When you first got into that circle, you're blind for a little bit. You take the money and hang out with those powerful people, and you think "Maybe I'll get the audition, maybe I can make it, or this and that. But at one point, you'd be like, "Sorry, but I don’t like being a bad person."
You can be a good person and still enjoy amazing things.
"
It's been a battle to tell the truth about LA. No one wants to listen. Everyone is blinded by the truth they wanna follow. They wanna live the dream, the fantasy -- that's all it is, a fantasy.
"
My family still doesn’t know much about my experience.
It’s a heavy topic to bring up in every conversation when you see your family. Especially when you look at all these cousins, you don’t wanna say, "Let me tell you how I was trafficked to be a sex slave."
Same thing with my friends. I can only trickle in little details every time I find the chance, and try to explain what I'm doing.
My sister is fourteen now. When she goes to college, I want her to be safe. I don’t want her to be forced into any kind of situation where she doesn’t want to be in.
I think the more I speak out, the safer everybody will be in the future.
I got interviewed before and also participated in a documentary.
The article on the website called Deadline came out in December 2017. But the Atlantic article that was supposed to come out in the middle of 2018 got postponed. They had to redo the entire article, hired new people to fact-check everything after they had done years' of work.
Thankfully, the article came through. The Atlantic who gave MLK a voice back in the day now published my story, although I waited till March of 2019.
But even back then, it wasn't black and white. People had to fight for their rights, for kids' rights, and human rights.
It's been a battle to tell the truth about LA.
A lot of times, truth and facts are mistaken for fiction or conspiracy theory. People don’t know if that's the truth, they don’t believe the victims, and they just weren't sure how not to get into trouble from blackmailing the person in the industry without being blackmailed themselves.
But if we don’t speak about it, things will still happen. Those who have power aren't told no will just keep getting and getting, buying and buying, until they are no longer human, rather just subject of the industry and no longer in control of themselves or the things that happen around them.
The rising of #MeToo Movement showed me the hope for change, and made me more determined to tell the story through writing my book.
My book is called The Prince of Darkness, using fiction to tell the darkness I've been through. Imagine Alice in Wonderland, there's a series of dreams, and the hero Oliver does that. He's like visiting downtown LA and then falls into a black hole where a monster chases after him.
I've self-published the first edition, it was thirty thousand words. And now I'm working on the second edition that has eighty thousand words. There's already a publisher showing interest in my book. I really hope to push this book into the bookstores, then give book tours, and talk to people about it. I assume there will be audience who have been through something similar coming to me. I would love to help me, give them suggestions and spreading the light -- I'll never get tired of doing that.
The message I want to send through this book is that you have to stay around the right crowd. You need to keep the light in your life. You can't be in any kind of darkness. You have to navigate it.
And I dedicate this book to those fighting the monsters, you will find the light and comfort life gifts.
Later I told Bret about #MeToo in China and Jingyao's case.
He said: "MeToo in China is no different than here in America except for the fact that it's less talked about, and the women aren't gaining the respect same as the women here in America, even though just as important and relevant."
"I wish by sharing my story, I can give them some power. I wish we can push MeToo together," Bret said, "because darkness will eventually be shattered."
-END-
The articles and Documentary mentioned above:
Documentary An Open Secret
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GPfMQaj4qo&list=PLmzpJGQrGAsAWioxpRXWJQ_tSU8rvT5gC&index=20
Article on Deadline in Dec 2017
Article on the Atlantic in Mar 2019 https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/bryan-singers-accusers-speak-out/580462/
Check out the Chinese version at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_1F5tq9ttycBWAKM4l4JqA