Having someone threaten to leak nude photos of you isn’t something any person should have to deal with, but Sia’s response to this kind of hideous situation is perfect. The singer-songwriter learned that paparazzi were attempting to sell nude photos of her, which appear to have been taken without her knowledge, to people online.
Which is, in a word, gross. So, instead of letting these sexist, camera-wielding goblins profit off her body, she simply leaked the photo herself.
“Someone is apparently trying to sell naked photos of me to my fans,” she wrote on Twitter along with a blurred image of herself taken from behind. “Save your money, here it is for free. Everyday is Christmas! ”
The move is classic Sia, as she’s known for appearing behind large hairpieces at most public appearances as a way of dealing with fame on her own terms.
“It’s so that I can go to Target and buy a hose if I want to, and/or if I’m in need of a restroom and I can’t find one, I could go by the side of the road, and nobody would be following me with a camera trying to get ‘the shot’,” she told Ellen DeGeneres in 2015. Talk about some scary foreshadowing.
The photo in question has a watermark from some kind of photo agency and touts that there are 14 other images for sale. As Fortune notes, “it was seemingly taken with a telephoto lens from a significant distance away. ”
It’s deeply disturbing that women, both famous and otherwise, still have to worry about having compromising photos taken, leaked, or sold without their permission. In recent years, hackers have released nude pictures of celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and McKayla Maroney. However, the photos of Sia appear to have been taken without her knowledge, rather than stolen from her phone or computer. Either way, it’s a major violation that in the wake of the numerous charges of rape and sexual assault currently pending against men in the entertainment industry, feels especially disgusting.
Sia has yet to comment further and the identities of the photographer or photographers in question are unknown.
