Nude photos of a number of celebrities were leaked onto the web Sunday causing a mass hysteria for obvious reasons. The nude pictures of Jennifer Lawrence and Victoria Justice captured mostly everyone’s attention — no surprise.
The Lawrence nude selfies look like ones she took using her phone. Same deal with Justice, though she at least was smart enough to cover up in the pics (and she denied on Twitter that the pics were real). Lawrence confirmed the photos were of her and her attorneys are acting aggressively.
Kirsten Dunst, Teresa Palmer, Becca Tobin, Jessica Brown Findlay, Kristen Ritter and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were other actresses/models who had photos leaked.
Two notable athletes were also part of the group: Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney and soccer goalie Hope Solo.
Alleged nude photos of Justin Verlander and girlfriend Kate Upton also were leaked.
Maroney later tweeted that the photos of her were fake:
the fake photos of me are crazy!!
was trying to rise above it all, and not give "the creator" the time of day.. BUT.. pic.twitter.com/hceQcOxYkJ
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014
shout out to my fans for defending me all day long.. even when things got weird u stood by me. and that meant the world
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014
According to BuzzFeed, the photos were obtained through an iCloud leak and posted first on a 4chan forum by someone looking to sell them for bitcoins. The last time celebrity photos leaked onto the web (we’re talking Scarlett Johansson nudes), a guy ended up going to prison for 10 years for hacking into personal accounts.
A word of advice to those considering taking/sending nude photos with their phone: make sure your head/face isn’t in the pic. Do that and you should be safe even if you get hacked.
