Key Takeaways
- Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou made his runway debut in Elena Velez’s Spring 2027 NYFW show, carrying a Watergate book for one of his two looks.
- Kiriakou publicly exposed the CIA’s use of waterboarding, served 30 months in prison for disclosing a covert officer’s identity, and recently became a viral TikTok figure through edited interview clips.
- Velez continued her provocative casting streak by also featuring viral Empire State Building climbers Angela Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov, who closed the show.
Former CIA counterterrorism officer and George W. Bush-era whistleblower John Kiriakou, who went viral on TikTok earlier this year, just made his New York Fashion Week runway debut.
At the showcase for Elena Velez’s yr009 collection last week, the fashion designer recruited Kiriakou among others to model the new ready-to-wear Spring 2027 pieces. The 62-year-old CIA whistleblower, who is most famous for disclosing the extreme torture techniques that CIA officers used at black sites during interrogations, walked down the catwalk with a book about Watergate under his arm for one of his two looks.
While Kirakou left the CIA in 2004, he was indicted in 2012 for blowing the whistle on the torture techniques and disclosing CIA officer identities to reporters in the process. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and has since received multiple awards for his whistleblowing following his release in 2015.
Earlier this year, the ex-CIA officer went viral on TikTok thanks to several edits of interviews with him, in which he’s discussing everything about his former working environment. The details, which included talk about waterboarding and other war on terror-era counterterrorism tactics, left viewers shocked. Due to the way the clips were edited, with his voice sped up or slowed down for dramatic effect, they were also getting attention for how funny they were despite the dark subject matter.
Following his release from prison, Kiriakou has authored several books, including The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror and The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War. When he spoke to ABC News about the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation" techniques in 2007, he said he was uncomfortable about the use of waterboarding. “We waterboarded each other in the beginning to see what it felt like and it’s a wholly unpleasant experience,” he said. “You feel like you’re choking or drowning.”
As reported by Coveteur, Velez staged a similar stunt earlier this year when she had controversial content creator and infamous ‘looksmaxxer’ Clavicular close the show in his runway debut. This time around, she also had Russian couple Angela Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov, who went viral this summer after scaling the Empire State Building and getting proposed up there, close the show.
