Three weeks after hackers posted hundreds of stolen photos of nude celebrities, another crop of intimate pictures surfaced online over the weekend. Stars affected by this latest breach include actresses Gabrielle Union and Meagan Good, who confirmed that their photos were stolen.
Other celebrities who saw photos (alleged to be them) leaked were Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Kate Bosworth and Jennifer Lawrence (whose representative already promised legal action when nude pictures of the star were stolen earlier this month), along with many more entertainers.
According to reports, the photos were first published again on such sites as 4chan and Reddit, where they were removed but spread almost instantaneously across the Internet anyway. (Reddit has since banned the forum that popularized the photos.)
Union, the star of BET’s “Being Mary Jane,” and her husband, basketball player Dwyane Wade, released a statement to TMZ condemning the photos. The couple said their attorneys are contacting the FBI to investigate.
“[It] has come to our attention that our private moments, that were shared and deleted solely between my husband and myself, have been leaked by some vultures,” Union said. “I can’t help but to be reminded that since the dawn of timem women and children, specifically women of color, have been victimized, and the power over their own bodies taken from them. These atrocities against women and children continue worldwide.”
Good, who appears in the “Think Like a Man” film franchise, wrote on Instagram that she was “in shock” and “saddened” that someone stole her private photos intended for her husband. “For everyone re-posting the leaked nudes? You should be ashamed of yourselves,” she wrote.
When news of the initial hack broke, many pointed their fingers at leaks in Apple’s iCloud system — but the company recently said that the hack was a result of targeted celebrities and had nothing to do with Apple systems.
“We have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet,” Apple said in a statement. “None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved.”
In the wake of the original photo leak, stars including Lawrence and Kate Upton have stayed quiet while their representatives promised legal action. Other spoke out about the breach, including “The Big Bang Theory” star Kaley Cuoco, who joked about it last week on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Cuoco said she’s (sadly) accustomed to people posting fake nude photos of her online, but she was taken aback when these pictures turned out to be real. Although she was upset, she decided to poke fun at the story, and tweeted a faux-blurred-out photo of her and her husband.
“It was just a really bad situation, but I took it into my own hands and made a joke about it,” she told Kimmel. “Because, you know, what are you going to do?”
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