Gabrielle Union comes out swinging in letter about leaked nude photos
Actress Gabrielle Union has penned a letter for the December 2014 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine titled “My Nude Photos Were Stolen, and I’m Fighting Back,” addressing hackers leaking private naked photographs of her in September.
In the letter, she says as the leak unfolded, “I thought, this is a targeted attack, a hate crime against women.” The photos, which Union sent to her husband Dwyane Wade, were deleted immediately after being received — but they were archived in Apple’s iCloud, allowing hackers to steal naked images of Union, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and number of other celebrities.
Union writes in the letter that the original leak occurred right before she was getting ready to marry Wade and that her own photos were released online during the couple’s honeymoon. Union writes that her “honeymoon was plagued by thoughts of when I would get hit. It was always in the back of my mind: Will today be the day my life gets ruined?”
Union says she was inclined to speak up about the event because she was named to the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women by President Obama a few years ago. She writes that, “I didn’t like the public perception of this scandal — that we were just a bunch of narcissistic, sexually deviant celebrities who got what we deserved for being dumb. No one deserves to have a private moment stolen, whether it’s a photo, text, or email.”
Union also opens up about being raped in college, writing that prosecuting her attacker and speaking up about it was painful — and still is — but that she was “raised to speak up.” She also called the absence of outrage and discussion by women’s groups and feminists “deafening.”
The 42-year old actress later says that adjustment has been a struggle following the leak, writing, “I am adjusting to my new reality. Everything feels tainted. On Instagram, people tell me they’ve seen me naked. Walking into my favorite pizza place, I wonder who has seen the photos and what they are thinking.”
The FBI has launched an investigation into the hacking scandal, but it is still unclear how the hackers gained access to the private photographs.
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