Gabrielle Union was just one of the many female celebrities that were targeted in the nude photo hacking scandal a few months ago. The Bring It On actress, along with celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, watched as their intimate, private photos were splashed across the Internet after hackers managed to obtain them. In a heartfelt essay written for Cosmopolitan, Gabrielle reveals what it was like to see her name on the list of celebrities who had been hacked.
“[I] felt paralyzed,” Gabrielle writes. “It felt like The Hunger Games: You're waiting to be attacked."
The intimate photos of other celebrities started to appear on the Internet the day after Gabrielle married Dwyane Wade. The actress said the scandal put a damper on their honeymoon because she was constantly worried about her photos being leaked.
Gabrielle Union explained what it was like to have her private photos stolen. (WENN)
“It was always in the back of my mind: Will today be the day my life gets ruined?” she wrote. “I thought about my family and everyone the scandal would affect — my mom, who teaches classes about Catholicism to kids, and the three boys I had become a stepmother to when I married Dwyane. My husband, meanwhile, would always have to wonder who had seen intimate photos of me that only he was supposed to see.”
Photos of Gabrielle did, eventually, make their way to the Internet via the hackers. Gabrielle wrote that she had taken—and deleted—the sexy images years ago. She and her husband contacted the FBI after the photos leaked.
“There they were, online for the world to see,” she wrote. “I felt extreme anxiety, a complete loss of control. I suddenly understood that deleting things means nothing.”
Gabrielle was horrified by how people reacted to the photos of her and other celebs being posted.
“Friends are assuring you that this will pass and people will move on to the next thing,” she wrote. “But in this case, the next thing means the next victim — the next woman to have her naked body exposed to strangers against her will. And the crowd in the arena is going wild. People are critiquing and judging, cheering for more. They're shouting, ‘;Next! Next!'”
She also criticized women's organizations and feminists for not rallying to help the women on the hacked list.
“Some people say the publicity surrounding the photos helps our careers. We don't need this kind of press…It's not a career boost — it's a new form of sexual abuse…Where are all the women's groups, the feminists, demanding justice in this case? The silence is deafening. Any time you lose control over your body, it's a violation and a crime.”
