J-Law Responds To Leaked Photos: “It Is Not A ‘Scandal’. It Is A Sex Crime. It Is A Sexual Violation”
"Anybody who looked at those pictures: you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame.”
It’s been a month since, in a gross violation of privacy and consent, nude photos female celebrities leaked online. Up until today, Jennifer Lawrence hadn’t spoken publicly about the hack — but after Vanity Fair released a snippet from her upcoming cover story, her response was worth the wait.
“It is not a scandal,” she told VF’s Sam Kashner. “It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change … Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame.”
Her stance mirrored the response of many in the media, including Van Badham at The Guardian, who wrote a brilliant op-ed around the time the leak happened: “It’s an act of sexual violation,” she said, “and it deserves the same social and legal punishment as meted out to stalkers and other sexual predators.”
Lawrence reveals that, after the photos were stolen from her personal iCloud account and posted on 4chan, she contemplated writing a public apology. “Every single thing that I tried to write made me cry, or get angry,” she says. “I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for.”
While she didn’t apologise for the photos, she did attempt to explain them: “I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years,” she said. “It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”
Wish JLaw didn’t justify her nude pics saying she was in a loving long-term relationship. It shouldn’t matter, women can do as they please.
— Maureen (@motimetostart) October 7, 2014
Kashner had originally interviewed Lawrence for the Vanity Fair November cover on August 13, before news of the hack broke — but he reached out to her team afterwards, to give Lawrence “a chance to have the last word.” The publication of the article is timely for another reason, too; on Tuesday evening, Lawrence’s Wikipedia was hacked to feature two of the nude photos.
“Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she said to Vanity Fair. “It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world.”
I can’t tell you how proud I am of Jennifer Lawrence. You have no idea how much I love this badass woman.
— Shailene Woodley (@ShaileneArmy) October 7, 2014
Watch a brief behind-the-scenes video from the Vanity Fair shoot below.
로드 중
Go behind the scenes of Jennifer Lawrence’s VF cover shoot with Patrick Demarchelier. #VFvideo