Women installed on yachts in Cannes during the film festival are called “yacht girls,” and the line between professional prostitutes and B- or C-list Hollywood actresses and models who accept payment for sex with rich older men is sometimes very blurred, explains one film industry veteran.
The Cannes Film Festival’s Sex Industry Described in 10 Eye-Opening Passages, from The Hollywood Reporter
BY
JULIE MILLER
MAY 8, 2013
Apparently there is more to indulge in at the Cannes Film Festival than cinema, scenery, and spirits. A new in-depth
Hollywood Reporter feature details the high-end sex trade that occurs annually on the French Riviera, thanks to information provided by several Cannes regulars—the most forthcoming of whom appears to be the Lebanese businessman Elie Nahas. According to the
Reporter, in addition to owning a Beirut modeling agency, Nahas is a former “right-hand man for Moatessem Gadhafi,” Muammar’s son, and was sentenced to eight years in prison for operating a prostitution ring during Cannes after being busted in 2007.
The Hollywood Reporter and Nahas illustrate the festival’s illicit side so well that by the end of the feature, even first-time Cannes-goers will have an advanced understanding of Croisette escort-ery. Ahead, we highlight the most eye-opening revelations:
The women ran the gamut, from full-time escorts to models to beauty queens, and they serviced men in hotels, on yachts and in the palatial villas in the hills above Cannes, police said.
Philippe Camps, a lawyer for a Paris-based anti-prostitution organization that was a civil plaintiff in the trial, tells THR that some of the women were brought to Cannes under false pretenses and coerced into prostitution.
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Every year, women ranging from what the French call putes de luxes (high-priced call girls), who charge an average of $4,000 a night, to local streetwalkers, who normally get little more than $50 or $75 an hour turning tricks in nearby Nice, converge on Cannes for what one Parisian hooker calls “the biggest payday of the year.”
The local prostitutes, says Daisy, routinely drop cash off with concierges at the town’s top hotels. In return, if they are lucky, concierges sometimes steer clients their way.
“They can make up to $40,000 a night,” says Nahas. “Arabs are the most generous people in the world. If they like you, they will give you a lot of money.
The serious action starts after 10 p.m., he says.
“It’s all done with hand signals,” he says. “The guys signal their room numbers with their hands and the girls follow them.”
“Every year during the festival there are 30 or 40 luxury yachts in the bay at Cannes, and every boat belongs to a very rich person. Every boat has about 10 girls on it; they are usually models, and they are usually nude or half nude.”
“Clients are told to put the money in an envelope and write ‘gift’ on the outside of it.”