Influencer discovered lifeless in resort was ‘forced to eat her vomit’ in ‘cult’ boarding faculty
Influencer and art-world satirist Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, known as Jerry Gogosian, was found dead in a São Paulo hotel on May 31 as a 2024 Substack revealed her past
The influencer has been found dead in a luxury hotel after undergoing plastic surgery(Image: JamPress)
Shocking new details have emerged about the influencer who was recently found dead in a hotel room alongside pills and a bottle of alcohol.
Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, better known by her alter ego Jerry Gogosian, was found dead on May 31 in a luxury hotel in São Paulo, Brazil, after undergoing plastic surgery.
Fresh details that have recently been revealed from a 2024 Substack post which suggest Hilde had been left deeply traumatised by what she described as a “hellish” boarding school experience in the US. She said she spent her teenage years in isolation and fear at Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy in Missouri.
In the Substack autobiography titled Hilde’s Story, she alleged she was subjected to degrading “humiliation rituals”, including being forced to eat her own vomit, and wrote that she believed she would “never be healed” from what she endured. “It was a cult,” the 40-year-old California-based artist wrote.
In her account, she described being singled out and publicly shamed, the New York Post reported. She wrote: “The treatment I endured involved being forced to eat my own vomit in front of hundreds of people throwing food at me.”
Hilde, who rose to prominence in the art world under her satirical online persona Jerry Gogosian, was sent to the barbed-wired facility when she was still a preteen. Those close to her said she didn’t fit the profile of many of the other pupils.
“She was just a normal 12-year-old struggling that her parents are getting divorced,” her friend and fellow Mountain Park survivor Meaghan Richter, 44, told the New York Post. “Her getting sent there was not deserved.”
Hilde wrote that her family was lower-middle class and said she was also trying to readjust after time abroad. According to her Substack, her family moved to Russia for about a year for her father’s job when she was nine.
Meaghan said she still remembers the fear on Hilde’s face when she was made an “example” in the dining hall, with other pupils instructed to jeer. “The staff would just torture her,” she said.
“They were forcing her to eat and hold in her vomit.” Meaghan claimed Hilde struggled to keep food down when she first arrived, but alleged she was not taken to a doctor and was instead terrorised.
She said that after vomiting, Hilde was allegedly manhandled and dragged across the floor. And when the vomiting eventually stopped, Meaghan said the accusations continued, according to the New York Post.
“When finally it just stopped, they’re like, ‘See, you’re faking,’” Meaghan said. Hilde wrote that staff placed her “on silence”, meaning she was not allowed to speak to anyone, and said she was closely monitored during calls home, leaving her unable to ask for help.
“In truth, a part of me did break there that I am afraid will never be healed, but I have learned to channel the pain and redirect it,” she wrote.
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