Original subtitles

[electronic music playing]

NARRATOR: Ruslana Korshunova was the focus of the fashion world.

- She almost instantly had cover girl success.

NARRATOR: But when she fell from favor,

she shocked everyone when she joined a cult,

just months before her untimely death.

POMERANTSEV: The Rose of the World cult

was incredibly harsh. The message was:

sometimes it's better to commit suicide

than not to change.

The picture that I got

about Ruslana from her friends, from her family,

she was a sensible girl from a good, quite solid family.

- I could tell that Ruslana was a small-town girl.

She didn't grow up in the big city.

NARRATOR: Ruslana Korshunova was born July 2, 1987,

in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Her father was part of the Red Army.

In 1992, her father passed away,

leaving her mother to raise Ruslana and her brother on her own.

- She never wanted to be a model.

She was discovered by accident.

She was photographed in kind of a local magazine.

And then a scout saw these photos and started calling, saying,

"Look, I think your daughter has, you know, genuine talent."

She's such a kid.

I mean, she's got braces and stuff.

But I guess the scouts could see that she had great potential.

♪

- Unfortunately, most models are hired from

third world countries or middle-low class.

I think Ruslana and most of us, we don't really

get into modeling 'cause we want to model.

What we want to do is to help our families.

NARRATOR: Young, thin and Eastern European.

In the early 2000s, it was the look designers wanted,

and Ruslana was swept up immediately.

She was quickly booked to join coveted ranks

on the runway during New York Fashion Week.

- I would just put her in front of the camera,

and she would just shine.

There was this ease and this natural innocence,

this almost a naivete that came out

in the pictures and also as her as a person.

♪

POMERANTSEV: The hair became kind of her thing

that stylists used to define her.

- When I photographed her, I was considering her hair.

You know, the fact that it moves, and I particularly love movement.

So we tried to use her hair as an asset.

- They call her Rapunzel

because she had this long hair.

NARRATOR: In 2006, Ruslana's career takes off.

She's quickly signed to major campaigns:

DKNY, Vera Wang, Kenzo, Christian Dior.

Between her runway shows and ad campaigns,

she was easily pulling in six figures.

KIM: Ruslana being in Vogue the first year of her career

was a major, major accomplishment.

POMERANTSEV: She was doing London,

magazines and cover magazines,

and then New York and Milan.

So that's kind of the world that she was in.

NARRATOR: But not everything was perfect for Ruslana.

- By all accounts, from her colleagues,

her friends, she was constantly calling her mom,

and she was really homesick, as you'd expect.

- The fashion industry is a competitive industry,

and you're always trying to put yourself out there.

NARRATOR: Like many models, Ruslana's career

put her directly in the crosshairs of potential predators,

and she caught the eye of one of the very worst.

- We all now know the heinous story of Jeffrey Epstein,

the financier who had models farmed out to him.

I did hear that she was one of the models

that was flown to his private island.

- ♪ Let's go ♪

NARRATOR: In 2008, the modeling world

was undergoing a transformation.

[cameras clicking, excited shouting]

A new genre of models was on the rise,

a voluptuous and toned army of women

who brought a new level of competition to the runway game.

- One minute you are hot, and the next minute,

unfortunately, you're not.

Designers or the magazines or the photographers

dec-decide that there's a new

hot person on the market, so they're gonna focus on them.

It's really challenging and can be disheartening.

POMERANTSEV: You've been taken from nowhere,

you've become this superstar,

you're going to these hedonistic parties,

and suddenly you're dumped again by the age of 19 or 20.

- ♪ Let's go ♪

POMERANTSEV: She felt that the industry had used her.

NARRATOR: After all of the attention, Ruslana was left alone.

And in her attempt to find support...

...she joined a cult.