YOUNG, inexperienced and desperate to impress, she peeled off her clothes and dropped to her knees.

The fashion legend behind the camera then stripped off himself before thrusting his groin into her face.

Photographer Terry Richardson was famed for going nude on his own shoots, such as the snap of him and Kate Moss.

But amid the Harvey Weinstein scandal and a torrent of accusations of sexual exploitation, the man said to be the fashion industry’s most depraved photographer was this week barred from working on some of its biggest magazines, including Vogue.

As one studio insider told The Sun: “He makes Harvey Weinstein look like Bambi.”

A-listers including Brit Kate, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, Beyonce and Miley Cyrus have posed for Richardson, who is able to charge more than $200,000 a day. There is no suggestion of impropriety with any of these names.

But the guillotine has fallen as yet another industry evicts an alleged “predator” who has for years admitted to having sex with a string of women, insisting all encounters had been consensual.

“Uncle Terry”, as he likes to be called, has boasted of being “this powerful guy with a b**er, dominating all these girls” the insider said.

The insider added: “Everyone knew he chased sex with the models and he used to brag about it.

“But nobody who looks like that gets so much consensual sex without abusing his power.”

Richardson, 52, was dropped by Conde Nast, which publishes Vogue, GQ and Glamour.

An email, sent to staff by executive vice-president James Woolhouse, also warned that any commissioned work with the photographer should be “killed or substituted with other material”.

Like Hollywood producer Weinstein, who is facing allegations of sexual assault and harassment from nearly 40 women, self-confessed “pervert” Richardson is increasingly looking like someone who hid in plain sight for years.

The balding New Yorker has said that sex acts would boost the careers of models. He even persuaded American Horror Story’s Chloe Sevigny to dress as him, including the heavy-framed glasses, for a magazine cover so he could kiss “himself”.

The controversial photograher has defended his explicit shoots after being dropped by Conde Nast International.

An email circulated around the company, and seen by Britain’s Daily Telegraph, announced that any work by Richardson that had not been published would be “killed or substituted with other material”.

A spokeswoman for Richardson said: “Terry is disappointed to hear about this email especially because he has previously addressed these old stories. “He is an artist who has been known for his sexually explicit work so many of his professional interactions with subjects were sexual and explicit in nature but all of the subjects of his work participated consensually.”

BOHEMIAN LIFE

Richardson grew up in a bohemian household with mum Norma Kessler, an actress, and dad Bob Richardson, also a fashion photographer.

He was often left home alone by his parents, who would take drugs and party with rock stars including the Rolling Stones.

Bob eventually abandoned his family to run off with an 18-year-old Anjelica Huston. Richardson and his mum moved to London, where she had a fling with Jimi Hendrix before marrying Brit guitarist Jackie Lomax.

Aged nine, Richardson smoked pot for the first time and attempted suicide at 14.

Aged 18 he was playing in LA punk bands and taking heroin. After an overdose in 2001 he went into rehab and remains clean.

He launched his photography career in the early nineties and, in 1995, snapped models in short skirts showing their pubic hair for the Katharine Hamnett spring collection.

After working in London for The Face and i-D magazines, he returned to his home city to shoot for high street chains including H & M. From there he made it into the very highest echelons of the business.

Just last month, fashion house Valentino launched its 2018 campaign with his pictures. But rumours of his lewd behaviour stretch back to at least 2008, with various models coming forward to reveal what posing for him was like.

Anna del Gaizo told a fashion website how she had agreed to pose topless for Richardson but then he shocked her by thrusting his manhood against her face with “no warning whatsoever”.

She wrote: “He pressed it to my open mouth, giggling. He wanted a blow job, and he wanted it documented. I just knew I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.”

The pictures from that shoot were used in a global advertising campaign for a major fashion house.

Three years ago Charlotte Waters, who was paying her way through art college by working as a nude model, recounted how he licked her bare bottom during a shoot and treated her like a “sex puppet”.

Another model, Jamie Peck, claims in another online post that, aged 19, she was asked to perform a sex act on Richardson — which she did while his team of assistants egged her on.

Peck said: “He spoke in the effeminate tones of someone trying very hard not to come off as sexually threatening despite the fact he was basically walking around in a hipster paedophile costume.”

Model Sena Cech revealed that Richardson’s assistant asked her to grab the photographer’s private parts and twist them as hard as she could on one shoot. Richardson later claimed Cech agreed to it.

But she responded: “The experience was not consensual. It was revolting and humiliating.”

In a 2011 Skype chat posted online with an unnamed 17-year-old model, Richardson became irate with the girl when she made clear she would not have sex with him. He tells her: “Then you need to work at McDonald’s. This is the lifestyle.”

One picture featured in a 2004 exhibition of his work showed him with undergraduate intern “Skinny” Alexandra Bolotow. She was performing a sex act on him while crouched in a rubbish bin, the word “SLUT” pasted on her forehead.

In March last year Bolotow gave birth to their twin sons, Rex and Norman, and this summer the couple married.

Like Weinstein, Richardson’s defence is that the sexual acts were “consensual”. His friends say people know his shoots can be explicit.

His spokesman said a few weeks ago: “All the subjects of his work participated consensually.”

Richardson recently wrote: “I collaborated with consenting adult women who were fully aware of the nature of the work and as is typical ... everyone signed releases.

“I have never used an offer of work or a threat of rebuke to coerce someone into something that they did not want to do.

“I give everyone that I work with enough respect to view them as having ownership of their free will and making their decisions accordingly, and such, it has been difficult to see myself as a target of revisionist history.”

This ignores that he is one of the most powerful men in the fashion industry, able to make and break careers.

In a 2002 interview he admitted one shoot “got a bit out of hand” and added: “The woman producing the shoot got freaked out and had to leave. I think every person there f***** someone. It was intense.”

His 2006 book Kibosh and 2004’s Terryworld feature him posing with nude with models and performing sex acts on them. Some of the women complained that they were private photos. Cases were settled out of court and photos were removed.

Celebrities have had similar complaints. Two years ago actress Kate Upton alleged a video Richardson recorded of her dancing in a red bikini — which went viral — was not meant for public viewing.

But Miley Cyrus seemed relaxed about Richardson posting pictures of her posing with sex toys on his blog in 2015, two years after he shot her naked Wrecking Ball music video. She also wore a T-shirt for a shoot which read: “I was touched by Terry.”

With the recent spotlight on Hollywood’s casting couch, it is now shining on the fashion industry and the treatment of aspiring models.

As Richardson once bragged: “It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow. I don’t have a hole in my jeans for nothing.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission