Private photos of actress Emma Watson have been hacked and released onto the Internet.
Reports emerged yesterday that images of the actress had been leaked onto the so-called ‘dark web.’
The Beauty and the Beast star is now taking legal action, according to a statement released by her spokesperson, who confirmed that the images date from a few years ago and show Emma trying on different outfits. Contrary to online rumours, the photos do not show the actress naked.
‘Photos from a clothes fitting Emma had with a stylist a couple of years ago have been stolen,’ her spokesperson told BBC News. ‘They are not nude photographs. Lawyers have been instructed and we are not commenting further.’
Actress Amanda Seyfried is also thought to have been affected by the photo hack.
After her #HeForShe speech to the UN in 2014, hackers threatened to release naked photos of Emma on 4Chan – a threat which turned out to be a hoax. Discussing the so-called ‘hack’ at a Facebook event in 2015, the actress told the audience, ‘I knew it was a hoax, I knew the pictures didn’t exist. The minute I stepped up and talked about women’s rights I was immediately threatened, within less than 12 hours I was receiving threats.’
Responding to the major leak of naked photos of stars like Jennifer Lawrence in 2014, Emma tweeted: ‘Even worse than seeing women’s privacy violated on social media is reading the accompanying comments that show such a lack of empathy.’
Earlier this year, Edward Majerczyk, the man behind the iCloud hack, was sentenced to nine months in jail and ordered to pay $5,700 in restitution.
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