If nude pictures of me were ever published – on either a plucked-chicken or Mr Tumnus the Faun fetish website, I suggest, depending at which stage of the depilation cycle I had been caught – I would probably scream loudly and try to run in 14 directions at once before calling a lawyer so that he could charge me money to tell me that it’s the internet and nothing can be done but change my name and never take my clothes off anywhere ever again.
Fortunately, celebrities have more options and more style. The singer Sia – who guards her privacy so fiercely that she rarely appears in public without a huge wig covering her entire face – became aware that a paparazzo was trying to sell pictures apparently taken with a long lens while she was on holiday, showing her naked from behind. Or her behind, naked, if you prefer.
Either way, her response was as forthright as her customary privacy solution; she posted the photo herself on Twitter, with the message: “Someone is apparently trying to sell naked photos of me to my fans. Save your money, here it is for free. Everyday is Christmas!” Everyday Is Christmas is the name of her latest album, thus neatly truncating the pap’s profits while, hopefully, adding to her own.
Sure, being forced to make lemonade out of privacy-violation lemons is an attenuated form of justice, but then so are most of the other options.
Some celebrities – including Justin Bieber, Harry Styles and Ariana Grande – dismiss stories on the basis that the people in the pictures are mere lookalikes. “My lil ass is a lot cuter than that lmao” tweeted Grande after supposed nude pictures of her were leaked, adding like a pro: “And tour details r comin soon.”
Some repair to the courts, as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did after topless photos of the latter sunbathing on a private estate in Provence were published in a French magazine and newspaper. Last month, Kate and William were awarded about £92,000 in damages.
But, while such awards are designed to punish and chasten the guilty party, they are rare and an oblique satisfaction when they do occur. Other intruded-upon celebrities prefer a more direct approach. When Jennifer Lawrence’s Apple iCloud account was hacked and naked pictures she had taken for her long-distance boyfriend at the time leaked, the Hunger Games star gave a magazine interview that made her views clear. “Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she said. “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. 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.”
May the odds be for ever in her favour.
