Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima was filmed giving a salute synonymous with a Turkish terrorist group responsible for hundreds of political assassinations over the last 40 years.
First reported by the Daily Mail, video footage has surfaced of the Brazilian supermodel performing the hand gesture associated with the Grey Wolves, the militant arm of the right-wing National Movement Party in Turkey, which tried to execute Pope John Paul II in the 1980s.
The footage, seemingly recorded in a gym and posted to the Internet, shows Lima saying the word Bozkurtlar--which in Turkish means wolves--making the salute and then howling.
A spokesperson for the model insisted that she had been tricked into giving the salute. Lima was allegedly approached by a Turkish man in Miami, Florida, who told her the salute was a symbol for his gym.
"The video was prompted and taped by a Turkish boxer who visited Adriana’s local gym in Miami earlier this summer," the spokesperson said. "She was unaware of the wider context of what she was doing or its association to a political group. Adriana has no affiliation to any political party in Turkey and unequivocally denies any implied association to these organizations."
"She is personally disappointed that her good will was taken advantage of to create a video, released without her knowledge or consent, that upsets any community," the spokesperson added.
The model appears alongside a man in the video footage.
The Grey Wolves is responsible for hundreds of deaths in Turkey since its formation in the 1960s. The terrorist group attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981; the Pope suffered severe injuries after he endured gunshots in St Peter’s Square, Rome.
According to Forbes, Lima was the world’s second highest paid model in 2014 after Gisele Bundchen.