The Bling Ring

by Nancy Jo Sales

  The Bling Ring girls came of age at the dawning of so-called “raunch culture” in which self-objectifying women are seen as cool and empowered. “Many young girls and women today,” writes Dr. Leonard Sax in Girls on the Edge (2010), “do not question the idea that baring their skin is a badge of sexual liberation.” Girls post provocative pictures of themselves on the Internet as if they were already porn stars; a 2008 survey found that one in five teenage girls had published a nude or nearly nude picture of herself on social media or sent one via cell phone.

  But girls may just be replicating an image of themselves they see virtually everywhere around them today. In its 2010 “Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls,” the American Psychological Association found evidence of girls being sexualized in a vast array of mediums—movies, television, advertising, music videos, song lyrics, toys, video games, cartoons and animation, magazines, clothing, beauty pageants, and the Internet. These are images, messages, products that portray girls in a sexual context inappropriate to their age, promoting the idea that they can or should be “hot.” The adverse effects on girls’ well-being, said the APA report, include anxiety and low self-esteem, “body dissatisfaction and appearance anxiety,” and depression, all potentially leading to eating disorders, cutting, drug and alcohol abuse, and smoking.

  “Perhaps the most insidious consequence of self-objectification,” the APA report said, “is that it fragments consciousness. Chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other mental and physical activities.”

  In Tess’ Cybergirl shots, she looks delighted to be there, eager to please—and very young. In her pole-dancing videos on the Internet, in which she wears high heels, a bra, and a thong, you get the sense she might have been an athlete or the ballerina she trained to be if she hadn’t decided to pursue a career in modeling.

  25

  “So you and Tess seem like you have the kind of life a lot of teenagers dream about,” I said to Alexis that day in Thousand Oaks.

  “It is glamorous,” Alexis chirped. “It’s fun, but we don’t take it for granted and at the end of the day we are so wholesome and down to earth and we really just care about people and the environment. Of course living this lifestyle is incredible,” she said, “hanging out with celebrities and sitting in V.I.P. and traveling and stuff like that. But it’s all about giving back. ’Cause I feel blessed—I really do—for the lifestyle that I have. . . .And Tess and I, we started from nothing, barely being able to afford groceries, to this lifestyle.”

  There was that word again—“lifestyle.”

  “When was it that you were struggling?” I asked.

  “Up until two years ago,” Alexis said. “But that’s how the entertainment business is—with the [Writer’s Guild of America] strike [of 2007–2008] and everything, it’s been tough; there’s been very rocky tough times in our lives. Two divorces . . . shows not going . . . a lot of stuff factors into it.”

  “So how do you deal with the rough times?” I said.

  She paused a moment, and then she began to cry.

  “I know who I am,” she squeaked, her face screwing up. “And I’m proud of who I am. And it’s taken me, like, a really long time to get to this point; but I’ve been through a lot of tough, tough stuff and . . . it just made me stronger.”

  She told me about a former boyfriend she later confided was a drug dealer. “He was a functioning drug addict,” she said. “He was twenty years old.” She said that they had met through Rachel Lee’s ex-boyfriend—the one who allegedly came along to a burglary of Paris Hilton’s house in the fall of 2008—and that she had dated him until the spring of 2009.

  “Underneath it all he’s a good person,” Alexis said, “totally into chakras, energy. And we fell in love so deeply and the reason I fell in love with him is I thought that I could fix him. . . .He was completely emotionally abusive to me and verbally he would cuss at me all the time. He started getting heavily into drugs. I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know until one day I caught him using it. He was freebasing heroin; he was taking cocaine and smoking weed.” She said that when she broke up with him, he threatened her physically. “My parents hated him. It wasn’t just the emotional stress on me, it was affecting my whole family.”

  She said he tried to get her into drugs, but she never succumbed. “I’m never gonna make the same mistake that I’ve seen since I was young,” Alexis said. “I had a dad who used drugs and alcohol and I used to always tell myself that I’m never gonna be that person.” (Mikel Neiers had no comment.) “For many years I’ve been offered tons of drugs,” she said, “especially partying out in Hollywood; but it’s just not my choice, it’s not who I am.

  “Who is Alexis?” she said, referring to herself in the third person, as celebrities often do. “And how are you being a role model?. . . It’s taken me a long time to get to this point, where I can say, ‘I’m Alexis. This is who I am, so take it or leave it’. . . . I feel strong. I feel independent. I feel like I have self-worth—”

  “Why are you crying?” I asked.

  “I’ve got so many people that are talking crap and getting this view of who they think Alexis is. It really bothers me when people assume and judge.”

  “Who’s doing that to you?” I asked.

  “A lot of people,” she sobbed. “The press, everyone. And now is the time in my life where. . . I’m ready to say, ‘This is Alexis, take it or leave it.’ ” She took a deep breath. “I’m ready to set a great example. My main goal, my main focus and my main destiny in life is to be a leader. It’s incredible for a girl my age to be where I’m at right now. Honestly, it’s like I’m a thirty-year-old woman in my body. I’m so confident and so excited for my future. I’m ready to take on whatever comes my way.

  “My emotions are really raw and, lately,” she said apologetically. “Everyone’s been attacking me. I haven’t been able to get the truth out. . .I want to tell the truth, but I can’t yet. But eventually when I do everyone will see who I really am.”

  26

  After we’d finished our interview, the producers set up Andrea in front of the camera to make a statement about Nick. “He’s a con artist,” Andrea said with her startled eyes, “and he conned me into believing that he was lending them clothes that were leftover from a season of being a stylist and he was able to lend them for their fashion shoots in order to develop their modeling portfolios. . . .”

  Gennifer Gardiner made Andrea say the sound bite again and again. Andrea was rushing her words, not getting it quite right.

  This was Tess and Alexis’ story: that Nick had told them he was a stylist and that was how he had access to all the fabulous clothes he was giving them to wear. “That was a story they told their mother,” Nick told me later. “That’s how they explained how they had all this new stuff. These girls want to sound like they’re naïve, but they knew” the clothes were stolen.

  Later, Alexis went to the back porch to smoke a cigarette. There, away from her parents, her lawyer, and her crew, she started talking about the Bling Ring kids.

  “Rachel’s a klepto freak,” she said, her voice taking on an edgier note. “She was so manipulating, so conniving. Nick always did what she said. Rachel was in charge. She started it all.

  “Nick was in love with Rachel. Like, he wanted to be her,” Alexis said. “She was the girl part of him. I thought he was a good guy. He was Tess’ friend. I got kicked out of the house for two weeks for a bunch of stuff and went and lived with him. . . .” That’s when they went to Orlando Bloom’s house together.

  27

  Their target, according to Nick, wasn’t Bloom at all, but his girlfriend, Miranda Kerr. Kerr, then 26, was a Victoria’s Secret model whose wardrobe Rachel admired. Born in Sydney and raised in Gunnedah, a small rural town, Kerr became a nationality celebrity at 13 after winning the Dolly Magazine/Impulse Model Competition. When she appeared in bathing suits in a Dolly shoot not long after her 14th birthday, s
ome members of the local media complained that the shoot was “pornographic” and might attract the attention of pedophiles. A national debate ensued over the increasingly young age at which models begin working.

  Once upon a time, models were women in their 20s with hourglass figures. Up until the 1960s, it wasn’t uncommon for a model to be a mother. The “youthquake” of the 1960s saw the introduction of younger models like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton, but 18 was considered an unofficial cutoff point, the age below which a girl was still vulnerable enough to warrant protection from the pitfalls of the industry. In the 1970s, Calvin Klein broke the age barrier by casting 15-year-old Brooke Shields in a controversial ad for jeans (“You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing,” she cooed). In the 1980s, the age of models started to creep ever downward. Canadian model Monika Schnarre, who was discovered in 1984 at 14, appeared a year later on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Schnarre has recalled how she was once asked by a photographer encouraging her to mimic sexiness, “Listen, I know you’re a virgin, but could you just pretend?”

  In the last 10 to 15 years, the fashion industry’s use of very young models has soared—which can’t have gone unnoticed by the girls in the audience. And one wonders if that’s not the point. Fashion designers explain the youthfulness of models on the fact that samples sizes have shrunk to “0” and only 13- and 14-year-olds can fit into them anymore (another issue on its own); or on the popularity of Kate Moss, who throughout her influential career has retained an adolescent look; or on the novelty of fresh faces. But that’s only part of the story. The last 10 to 15 years have also seen an increasing push for marketing to teenage, tween, and even elementary school-age girls fashions, which were once considered appropriate for adults only. Major fashion brands have been developing teen lines for decades; what is more recent, however, is the marketing of “sexy” clothing to girls of all ages—belly shirts, low-slung pants, cleavage-baring tops, “booty shorts,” etc.

  The thong—an item once found almost exclusively in the wardrobes of strippers, which then found its way into the lingerie drawers of young women in the age of raunch culture—is now marketed to girls, sold on the tween and children’s market, often decorated with pictures and slogans designed to appeal to children. “I [Heart] Boys,” says one; “Look Out Boys Daddy Is Coming Home”—from being deployed in the military—says another; and most cynical of all, from Kmart Australia: “I [Heart] Rich Boys.” (The latter was removed from stores after a Twitter campaign.) Clothing chains such as the Limited Too that cater to tween shoppers now carry “sexy” lingerie such as teddies and scanty panties. In 2011, the website Jezebel posted a story on a store in a Colorado mall called Kids N Teen which was selling crotchless thong underwear. When confronted by an outraged shopper, the owner of the store reportedly defended herself by saying that 25 percent of her merchandise was for teenagers—as if that made it okay. (The store later removed the offending thongs.)

  One of the biggest marketers of lingerie for girls is Victoria’s Secret. In 2012, its $12 million annual Fashion Show made no secret of who its target audience was, with performances by Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, and Rihanna. Sales of the company’s youth line, Pink, have skyrocketed since its launch in 2002. While Victoria’s Secret says Pink is targeted to 15- to 22-year-olds, a performance by Justin Bieber at its biggest marketing event of the year would seem to say something else; Bieber’s fan base is tweens. As the singer performed his hit, “As Long As You Love Me,” models walked the runway in Pink merchandise. One of them was Miranda Kerr.

  Pink features lingerie, sleepwear, and clothing designed to look sexy. Its 2012 Christmas stocking stuffers included lace panties that said “Unwrap Me” and “Ho Ho Ho.” Pink also has a “Bling Lace Trim Thong Panty,” a strip of nylon encrusted with fake diamonds. In addition to Pink, other major clothing brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle have rushed to put out teen lingerie, an increasingly large chunk of the multi-billion-dollar lingerie market.

  So when Rachel Lee wanted Miranda Kerr’s clothes, we can guess she wanted to look sexy. To steal the lingerie of a lingerie model—and the Bling Ring stole Kerr’s underwear as well—is on some level an attempt to steal her sexual mojo. When I asked Nick Prugo what he thought Rachel’s motivation in the burglaries was, he said, “I know it sounds dumb, but, like, she wanted the clothes. She wanted to look pretty.”

  But it wasn’t only Kerr’s wardrobe that might have appealed; it was her lifestyle as well. She was dating a star—a particularly hot star, one of Teen People’s “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” of 2002 and People’s “Hottest Hollywood Bachelor” of 2004. Orlando Bloom, then 32, had starred in three of the Pirates of the Caribbean films (2003, 2006, and 2007), in which he played the blacksmith Will Turner, a sensitive and gifted swordsman. He had starred in all three of the Lords of the Rings films (2001, 2002, and 2003), in which he played the elf prince Legolas, a sensitive and gifted archer. His image had been made into 22 different plastic action figures (10 for Legolas, 12 for Will Turner). He’d appeared in four of the 20 highest grossing films of all time (all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Which meant that he and his girlfriend were living very well. They were also Buddhists.

  “I see myself as a genuine person who wants the best for everyone,” Kerr told the Daily Telegraph in 2007. “I believe we’re all equal and we all have our purpose in life. We all have our karma that we need to fulfill and I’m here fulfilling mine.”

  She sounded a lot like Alexis Neiers. Or maybe vice-versa.

  28

  Alexis told cops that she and Nick were drinking at Beso in Hollywood on the night of July 13, 2009, when Nick got a call from Rachel telling him to come and meet her somewhere. She said she knew that Nick, Rachel, and Diana Tamayo had been burglarizing the homes of celebrities, including those of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Audrina Patridge, and others she “was not sure about.” Alexis said she was drunk and “not sure what was going on” as Nick parked his white Toyota on the road up the street from a house in the Hollywood Hills. Later, she said, she would find out that it was the home of actor Orlando Bloom.

  Alexis said that she and Nick met Rachel and Diana on the road down the hill from Bloom’s home. (Tamayo’s lawyer, Behnam Gharagozli, denies his client was involved in the Bloom burglary.) It was a 3,248-square-foot house the actor had purchased in 2007 for $2.75 million. It was looming, black, and surrounded by lush landscaping. Alexis told cops she didn’t want to go inside. Surveillance footage of Bloom’s home from the night of July 13 shows four figures walking, four abreast, uphill toward the house. One of the lights on the street is out, so you can’t see their faces; but you can see that two of them are taller; two are shorter. One of the taller ones is wearing what appear to be light blue pants. They all appear to be wearing hooded sweatshirts, with the hoods pulled around their faces.

  As they get closer to the house, it becomes clear that they’re walking backwards—backwards up a hill—as if they’re aware that they’re being filmed by a camera mounted above them, and they’re trying to conceal their identities. As they get closer to the house, they suddenly dash toward it—again, seemingly trying to avoid having their faces caught on camera. When they get to the call box at the front of the house (the entire compound is surrounded by a large fence), they ring the bell several times. The postman always rings twice, but the Bling Ring rang three, four. . . .

  Apparently satisfied that no one is home, one of the smaller figures attempts to hop the fence, but she can’t make it over. She then kneels down and starts working on the fence from the bottom. Alexis and Nick both said this was Rachel, unbraiding the links of the fence, forming an opening. They said she made a hole in the fence and then slipped through, accidentally knocking over a large planter on the other side. The broken planter was found by police when they came to the house two days later, after the burglary was reported.

 
; Surveillance footage shows the lights of a car going on in the courtyard in front of the house (the key was left in the ignition). It was Rachel checking the car for valuables, Nick and Alexis both said, but she didn’t find any. The lights of the car are left on briefly as the burglars make their way up to the house. They walk around the perimeter, checking doors and windows, until they find an unlocked door by the pool area. Bloom’s master bedroom.

  The lights in the house flicker on successively as the burglars make their way from room to room. Once they were inside, Alexis said that Nick, Rachel, and Diana began to “ransack the home and remove property,” “taking numerous items and putting them in bags.” She said she saw they were wearing gloves.

  “What are you doing?” Alexis said she screamed. “Get me the fuck out of here!” Then, she said, she went outside and threw up and peed in the bushes.

  Alexis also said she “specifically observed Prugo walk out with a leather bag filled with items.” She said she “told Prugo that she wanted to leave,” and that “they all walked back to the cars with Bloom’s property.” She said she “did not take anything,” “but assisted Prugo with the leather bag through the fence.” “Lee and Tamayo [then] stated they were going back into Bloom’s home to recover more property,” Alexis said, while she and Nick “left the area and drove home.” Rachel called Nick “as they were driving home,” she said, “and told him they had taken numerous watches, jewelry, clothing, and paintings.”

  Surveillance footage shows the burglars were at Bloom’s house for about three hours, and that three or four times during their visit they came out of the house carrying bags to their cars—bags so large and so heavy with stolen goods that, at one point, the one in the light blue pants stumbles, walking up the hill, dropping a bag in the road.