Selena Christina Perez gets paid to be hot, but lately she’s been scorching the earth for free.
In a recent social media post, the model alleges she’s owed $3,000 for her work with legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath — cash that Perez claims has been missing for over a year.
But it isn’t Dame McGrath withholding payment. Instead, the 23-year-old Brooklynite is accusing a well-known agent named Shannon Leebern, owner of the Ludlow Scout modeling agency.
The post is just one of many on a newly-launched Instagram profile called Ludlow Scam, detailing the agency’s alleged sins including unpaid invoices, threatening texts and bizarre excuses for missing cash.
Through a lawyer, Leebern insists that she is the one being scammed by “a disgruntled photographer who has been paid in full.”
The model mess, she vows, is really one big “smear campaign.”
But in just a week, over 20 models, photographers, stylists and parents have called or emailed The Post, alleging that Ludlow Scout owes them thousands of dollars in promised refunds or unpaid labor.
Perez, who has also modeled for Makeuo by Mario and Aritzia, is one of them.
Over TikTok, the Brooklyn resident shared what she claims are screenshots of unpaid bills, emails from Pat McGrath’s finance team, pages from her Ludlow Scout contract and texts from Leebern about payment delays.
“I’ve heard she was getting a divorce. I’ve heard her mom is ill. I’ve heard every excuse under the sun,” a frustrated Perez told The Post.
Meanwhile, Leebern’s lawyer claims her client “has devoted her time and energy 24/7 into making sure the models had everything they needed.”
So who is the real fashion victim?
Ludlow Scout opened in 2014 on the Lower East Side. Helmed by Leebern and her then-partner Della Bass, it served as a “mother agency,” discovering new talent in states like Leebern’s native Georgia, then training them for catwalks New York and Paris.
(Della Bass left to create her own successful agency in 2023. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing by Ludlow Scout’s past or current clients. She did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.)
The agency built a strong reputation for unearthing rural Southern beauties and turning them into elite models for Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Maybelline. Ludlow Scout also represented controversial thin-fluencer Liv Schmidt, who later became an online pariah for her anorexic “hacks.”
But multiple sources contend that Ludlow Scout has dimmed since Bass departed in 2023.
The chief allegation: Models are paying anywhere from $350 to $750 for test photo shoots — even though, these sources claim, the money is kept by Leebern herself instead of used to pay photographers. Photos are delayed or withheld from model portfolios, Balenciaga dreams are dashed, and cash is now allegedly missing.
Jennifer Boland, a Florida mom whose teen daughter signed with Ludlow Scout this spring, told The Post about her experience working with the agency.
“From the beginning there were red flags,” said the mother of three, who alleged that “I would send one Venmo payment and there would be immediately a request for another one — I mean, within hours.”
Boland claimed that this spring, she paid $1,600 for multiple photo shoots, including a session with an experienced photographer who counts supermodels like Isabeli Fontana and Candace Swanepoel as muses.
But Boland alleges that after she wired money to the agency specifically for the shoot, the “beautiful” pics were on lockdown because Ludlow Scout hadn’t paid the photographer — and the mom was left scrambling to pay for the shoot herself.
The Post reviewed an extensive email chain between Boland and Ludlow Scout with emails signed with Leebern’s full name, Shannon Wall Leebern, and including a cell phone number affiliated with the agency.
In the emails, Boland was promised a prompt refund in three installments. The agency sent $600 on Sept. 26 with a note:
“You will receive the next tomorrow [Sept. 27] and the final one on Wednesday [Sept. 28].”
But as of today, the Florida mom of three claims she never received the next two payments.
“I received $600 on the 26th,” Boland wrote to The Post in an email. “Nothing since.”
Puzzlingly, Leebern’s lawyer also told The Post that just because her client is the co-founder and CEO of Ludlow Scout doesn’t mean she herself is personally liable.
“Ludlow Scout is the trade name of a Georgia limited liability company. Shannon Leebern is a manager and owner of Ludlow Scout. Contracts between Ludlow Scout and models are contracts between the company and the applicable model…,” the statement read.
“To the best of Ludlow Scout’s knowledge, Ms. Leebern has never personally guaranteed any contract or obligation of Ludlow Scout.”
Similar allegations against Leebern have landed Ludlow Scout agency with an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), citing 15 complaints from models accusing the agency of thefts ranging from $850 to $8,000.
“They scammed me and the photographer out of $750 for a photoshoot and still has not created my model book,” says an anonymous online complaint from this spring, with plenty more in that same vein.
(BBB allows anonymity, but demands a legal name, professional email address and screenshots or invoices to verify allegations.)
Multiple photographers have gone on the record to The Post with their allegations — including feted snapper Nick Glover, who has worked for high end fashion house Christian Dior, celebrity lenser Bonnie Nichoalds and Bloomingdale’s photographer Alain Vasallo.
In communications obtained by The Post, Vasallo wrote to Leebern expressing concern that two models showed up for a photoshoot with him — even though nobody gave him a heads up.
“Both [models] mentioned that Ludlow had booked and confirmed the shoots with me,” he emailed. “However, I had not received any communication or booking confirmation from your agency.”
The replies, which are signed “Shannon Wall Leebern, owner/partner,” push back:
“I did confirm the shoots with you and everything was booked on our end. I wouldn’t have had the models pay and fly to Miami if it wasn’t confirmed already. So maybe you didn’t put it on your schedule or just forgot about it.”
Vasallo accommodated the shoot as a good will gesture, but when he asked for payment, the agent changed her tune:
“Looking at these photos I don’t even remember booking with you. I think I was trying to book another photographer and gave the girls the wrong contact info… These are not the images I was expecting at all… Honestly very annoyed now.”
Vasallo pressed for his $750 fee, but Leebern wrote in the email to “stop harassing” her, adding, “It’s not even that large an amount.” ($750 is nearly double the daily pay of an average New Yorker.)
When asked about the alleged practice of booking photographers without their knowledge and withholding fees, Leebern’s lawyer wrote that it was “conceivable” they couldn’t “finalize the booking” after first suggesting a photographer to their clients.
But Ludlow Scout insists that it’s “not aware of any instance in which a photographer was knowingly represented as booked when no booking had been made.”
Still, photographer Perla Diaz alleges that’s exactly what happened to her.
In a Sept. 28 email to the Bibb County, Georgia police department, Diaz told Sgt. George Witherspoon:
“Shannon booked a shoot under my name with a model named Lauren and collected payment for it, without ever arranging it with me.” She included screenshots of her text exchange with the model as proof.
Diaz already tried to file suit against Ludlow Scout in Los Angeles, but was told to try Georgia, where Leebern conducts her business, instead.
Through her lawyer, Leebern said, “Ms. Leebern and Ludlow Scout deny any wrongdoing.”
As allegations swirl, the anonymous Ludlow Scam account on Instagram boasts a chatty fan base of of models, influencers and fashion industry fans dying for zero-calorie tea.
But Ludlow Scout’s lawyers say the account has not kept its tactics above board, pointing out that the page tagged Leebern’s underage son and some of the family’s non-fashion friends in its digital diss tracks.
Still, Leebern’s lawyers have been unsuccessful in banning the page thus far, in part because the culprit hasn’t been unmasked.
In communications viewed by The Post, Leebern accused photographer Nichoalds of creating the anonymous diss-Toks, though she’s denied all wrongdoing — and looped in her own lawyer.
The drama has gotten so messy that Nichoalds and fellow shutterbug Dametrius Ward say they are planning a “Ludlow Scam” documentary, and “manifesting” the work with a mock-up of a Netflix poster using Leebern’s 2023 mugshot from a DUI arrest in Georgia. The post has over 6,000 likes on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Selena Christina Perez tells The Post she simply hopes for her a resolution.
The model claims that after posting her TikTok video, Leebern called her demanding its removal. She refused.
“I’m a hardworking person,” said Perez. “Maybe $3000 isn’t a lot to her, but to me it’s rent. It’s tuition… She claims to support young women but she’s just sad.”
In her statement to The Post, Leebern’s lawyer once again defended her client:
“Fashion is a passion of Ms. Leebern’s and her clients being the most successful version of themselves, has always been her goal. To see that mischaracterized, by these false allegations, has been very disappointing. She looks forward to resolving these matters and continuing to provide the utmost support for her clients and development for their careers, to help them achieve their goals.”
After multiple inquiries, Ludlow Scout’s lawyer also told The Post that — shocker — the company “does not agree with the broad characterization that it withheld money owed to the model.”
But because of a variety of factors, they’re “retrieving and reviewing the relevant records before making any further statement.”
Perez hopes it’s a bank statement.
As she tells The Post, “I’m so grateful I get to be a model… and I want to finally be paid what I’m owed.”
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