Gabrielle Union On Nude Photo Hack: "I Didn't Do Anything Wrong"
When nude photos of Gabrielle Union leaked in the 4chan hack this fall, the actress was on vacation with her new husband Dwyane Wade and her kids. She said yesterday at a Cosmopolitan conference that she was furious: "I didn't do anything wrong—no matter what people describe to me, [the hackers are] criminals."
Union, who contacted the FBI about the hack, explains:
We were taking a "family-moon" with the kids in Turks and Caicos—I'm on this island paradise with my family and I had hoped they had apprehended these criminals, but they hadn't. In the moment, I froze. I was mortified, terrified. ... I just didn't know what to do. I felt I had given so much of myself, but I had saved a little bit for myself and for my husband, and they had taken that from me.
She maintains that neither she nor any of the other celebrity women targeted in the hack did anything wrong: "I didn't do anything wrong—no matter what people describe to me, 'It's your fault, you're stupid to take nude photos, that's what happens when you're a celebrity'—all this nonsense, ... they're criminals. What you do with your own body is your choice. Period. There's no gray matter there. And when someone takes your choice away and your power away over your own body, it's a crime. Period. A hacking scandal? We're lessening it, making it more palatable for mass consumption, but it's a crime."
She also criticized Apple for not doing more to prevent the hack:
Over a hundred women were targeted—if these women weren't celebrities, there would be much more outrage, but because we're female celebrities. "We weren't good victims and we enjoyed it, all PR is good PR." That's what they say. ...
All of the 100 women who were targeted were Apple users. You would think the companies would be more helpful in taking the illegally-obtained images down, and they were not as helpful as you'd think as consumers. You'd hope they'd care as much about you as you do about the new iPhone 6.
Union wrote an essay about her experience for the December issue of Cosmo.
[Photo via Getty]