News of Monique Charrière’s passing first hit social networks just over one month ago, on June 20.

Monique appeared on the cover of an early Fetishistas v.1 edition, and most recently a few months ago in our March cover story about photographer Peter Diablow.

But as far as I know, despite admiring and showcasing her work, I never actually met her.

No precise date date of death has been made public. But it appears that the Bulgarian model, who had lived and worked in Amsterdam, London and South-East Asia, may have returned to Bulgaria’s capital Sofia with the specific intention of ending her life.

She had the sort of Slavic beauty that lends itself perfectly to fetish imagery, and she was a popular subject for European photographers, especially in Holland.

However, she was by all accounts a troubled soul who found it hard to form close relationships.

Despite the praise she received as a model, the picture that emerges from those who knew and worked with her was of someone burdened with much loneliness, unhappiness and self-doubt, which could make her difficult to work with.

One of her favourite photographers, HighGlossDolls’ Katja Ehrhardt, recalls that she often discussed suicide and had to be talked out of ending it all on more than one occasion.

In the second of these three fetishista deaths, much-admired American dominatrix, model and video star January Seraph also appears to have taken her own life. According to media reports, it happened in her own dungeon on Saturday July 22.

She described herself on her website as a “mercurial cunt, a pro dominatrix, an adult performer, a kinky adult video producer, a latex fetishist, a pervert with wanderlust, a dreamer, a doer, the id of some girl.”

Understandably, she chose not to mention that she was also a longterm depression sufferer. That condition was probably exacerbated in recent times, if the story that she’d had her business stolen from her is true.

An XBIZ tribute to her claims that she began her video career in 2008 performing for Kink.com’s Whipped Ass strand, rising to stardom as a disciplining mistress.