The Man Who Tried to Bury Me: Nicholas Barton Kennedy

What Nicholas Barton Kennedy Did.

His name is Nicholas Barton Kennedy.

And this is his legacy, whether he wants it or not.

I did not want to write this.

But silence has a shelf life.

And his has expired.

Nicholas Barton Kennedy is not a pseudonym.

He is not a metaphor.

He is a real man with a real face, a man who smiles for the camera, lectures on plants, runs a company called “Lovestock & Leaf” , and sells himself as an artist, a lover, a father, a poet.

But behind every curated photo, every softly spoken monologue, every filtered facade, is a legacy of control, manipulation, sexual coercion, emotional abuse, and, worst of all, what he did to his own children.

I am not here to soften the truth for your comfort.

I am here to name it for the first time, clearly, and publicly, so that no other woman, no other child, no other model, no other soul with soft eyes and trusting hands ever walks into his orbit without knowing the full measure of what he is.

I met him when I was young and full of promise.

He met me as a stranger at a Melbourne strip club, paid for lap dances, took my name, and began building a digital cage for me long before I even realised it.

He made me a website. Sent emails. Bought domains behind my back. Told me I was a muse, a masterpiece, a revelation.

But I wasn’t a muse, I was a project.

A possession.

An extension of his boyhood fantasies.

He saw my buzzcut and heels and decided I would become the next Marilyn Monroe. His Marilyn. His icon. His image to refine, control, and claim.

He was 42. I was barely 20.

Control was never overt. It was cloaked in compliments.

He said no one else could photograph me the way he could. That only he understood lighting, angles, integrity. That other photographers would ruin me, cheapen me, desecrate the purity of his vision.

He used “care” as a weapon.

He used “love” like a leash.

I believed him. I trusted him. And then I began to dim.

I stopped shooting with others.

Stopped questioning why I felt I owed him.

Stopped noticing the subtle suffocations:

Who I could see. What I could post. What I was allowed to do with my own body.

What started as collaboration turned into captivity.

He became my handler, not my partner.

And I didn’t fully see it until years later, when the full truth surfaced.

The truth I now carry like a knife: he hurt his children.

There are some truths too unbearable to speak in detail.

This is one of them.

But if you know the code, you know what I mean when I say:

He is a man whose name should appear on registries.

He is a man whose children carry scars he pretends don’t exist.

He is a man who would rather let the world think I am unstable than face his own reflection.

When I got close to the truth, when I saw the bruises beneath the facade: he turned.

He redirected the spotlight.

He fed whispers to his ex partner Rebecca. He implied I was the danger.

He spun stories, blamed psychosis, reframed history, and made himself the misunderstood genius with a mad ex girlfriend.

But I am not mad.

I am remembering.

And what I remember now, I name in public, for record, for justice, and for history:

Nicholas Barton Kennedy is a man who should never be near children again.

He is a man who tried to use my mental health against me.

He is a man who deflects, distracts, manipulates, and grooms, not just individuals, but entire narratives.

Why now? Because this is how we stop them.

Predators rely on silence. On fear. On shame.

They rely on women believing they’re alone.

On children believing no one will believe them.

On the idea that time will cover their tracks.

But I remember.

I remember everything now.

And this time, I’m the one holding the story.

This post is not revenge.

This is public record.

This is what happens when survivors speak without being silenced.

This is what happens when women stop protecting the reputations of men who would let children suffer to save their own skin.

To Nicholas Barton Kennedy:

You do not get to control this narrative.

You do not get to smile in new cities while your history rots in silence behind you.

You do not get to use my image, my name, or my vulnerability ever again.

This is your reckoning.

You thought you could bury the truth.

You thought you could recast me as the unstable one.

But you didn’t account for my memory.

Or my voice.

Or the thousands who will hear me when I say:

You were never love.

You were never art.

You were a weapon. And now you are disarmed.