Jennifer Lawrence brands nude image leaks a 'sex crime' amid calls for new digital protection laws
Jennifer Lawrence has publically condemned the theft of her private images for the first time, calling for new laws to tackle the thieves who perpetrated what she calls a “sexual crime”.
Lawrence calls the leaks a sex crime
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Lawrence, the victim of the scandal dubbed ‘the Fappening’ which saw selfies, often nude, stolen from over 100 celebrities' iCloud accounts in a very selective series of cyber-attacks, said she was disgusted by the Reddit and 4Chan users who leaked and shared her pictures.
The Hunger Games star claimed that after the leaks she was afraid and did not know how the images would affect her career adding that her position in the public eye should in no way make her an acceptable victim of such attacks which the FBI is now investigating to identify the source of the image thefts.
On the legality of the leaks, Lawrence said: “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime, it is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change.
"That’s why these websites are responsible, just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me.
“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. ”
The pictures have sparked a series of lawsuits served upon the sites hosting them.
Even Google was threatened at the weekend coming under fire for providing links to the sites hosting the images in addition to not acting quickly enough to remove them from YouTube, Google +and Blogger.