Former WWE wrestler Maven Huffman revealed on his YouTube channel that he was both a target and an unwitting employee of a fraudulent modeling agency in Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1996.
Maven said he was 19 years old and working at a soup kitchen as part of a college-required cross-cultural experience when a man who “looked like he could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company” approached him on the street and asked if he had ever considered modeling or acting.
“With my friends there to witness this, I truly felt as though I was being discovered on the spot,” Maven said.
The man handed him a business card and directed him to contact the vice president of a modeling agency called Creative Artists, run by a woman named Anne Wine. Maven said he was told time was of the essence.
The Pitch
Maven got permission from his professor to take an evening off and visited the agency. He described the operation as polished and welcoming. A woman at the front desk made him feel like they had been expecting him, offered him water and coffee, and told him he would be seen shortly.
After a 20-to-30-minute wait, he was told Anne Wine was unavailable, but an associate conducted his interview instead. During that interview, a third woman walked in, interrupted the conversation, and declared she wanted to sign Maven exclusively.
“At that moment, I was on cloud nine,” Maven said. “She would briefly explain exactly what they were looking for and how I had it all.”
The associate then told Maven the woman who interrupted was the owner of Creative Artists, and that what had just happened was extremely rare.
There was a catch. Maven was told that while the agency loved his potential, he was untrained. The solution was acting and modeling classes offered through the agency at a cost of $2,300.
Maven did not have the money. He called his mother from the office, and agency staff helped explain the opportunity to her over the phone. His mother, who was working two jobs as a dental assistant and a grocery bagger, turned it down.
“She told me, ‘I would if I could, but I can’t, so I won’t,'” Maven said.
Working the Front Desk
A few weeks later, Maven received a call from the agency’s front desk receptionist offering him a job working alongside her. He accepted and stayed in the D.C. area with his brother after his college program ended.
Once inside as an employee, Maven said the red flags started piling up.
He noticed that 30 to 40 people came in for interviews every day, and nearly all of them had the same story he did – approached on the street by a professional-looking person and handed a business card. Anne Wine, the supposed vice president, was never around. And many of the people coming in for interviews did not fit the profile of aspiring models or actors.
“I know this is not the best way to say this, but they just didn’t seem like the modeling or acting type,” Maven said. “But then again, who am I to judge? I was just a teenager at the time.”
The biggest red flag came when one of the agency’s on-site acting teachers was unavailable and Maven was asked to fill in and teach the class.
“Me – the same guy who, a few months prior, was told I needed to take acting classes – I would become the teacher,” he said. “They told me it’d be easy. For 30 minutes, have the class work on their monologues, and then for 30 minutes have them perform their monologues.”
The Truth
Maven said he confided his suspicions to the front desk receptionist outside of work. She confirmed everything.
“There is no Anne Wine,” Maven said she told him. “Talent scouts prey on the vulnerable. We sweet-talk them, get them into the building, have them pay for classes they do not need, and then provide them absolutely nothing in return.”
Maven said the entire operation ran on a commission structure. Street-level scouts received a percentage for every appointment they generated. The in-office staff earned commissions on classes booked. The company collected the rest.
Maven said the hardest part was realizing who the victims were. “The saddest was they preyed on low-income moms – moms who thought their kid was their way out, their way up, their way into making some money,” he said. “They would come in each and every day and somehow find the money for those classes.”
“Not Something I’m Proud Of”
Maven said he left the agency when he returned to college. The Better Business Bureau eventually shut Creative Artists down, and lawsuits followed.
“While it wasn’t my operation, it’s still not something that I’m proud of and not something I choose to talk about much,” Maven said. He added that the experience is part of why he incorporates charitable efforts into his YouTube channel whenever possible.
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