Jennifer Lawrence can finally feel vindicated following a painful experience when she was the victim of hacking. Andrew Helton, the man who plead guilty to hacking Jennifer Lawrence, Gabrielle Union, Kate Upton, Hope Solo, as well as others’ personal accounts, over two years ago, has been sentenced to six months in prison for the offense.
As The Hollywood Take reminds, Helton eventually admitted to hacking into hundreds of email accounts and to stealing 161 “nude and explicit photos” from 13 different victims. Following his six-month sentence, Helton will then serve two years of supervised release after leaving prison.
The crimes were referred to as a hacking scandal, yet Jennifer Lawrence was outraged by the whole ordeal that she states is not a scandal but a “sex crime.” The actress spoke to Vanity Fair.
“It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime. It is a sexual violation. It is disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change.”
Lawrence then went on to accuse anyone who viewed the nude photos that Helton shared of being guilty by association.
“[A]nybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”
Although Helton was the most well-known hacker in the scandal, there were others who were also able to access the same stars’ accounts two years ago.
Ryan Collins was another who plead guilty back in March and then entered a plea deal. The publication reminds of the activity which led Collins to compromise the personal information and pictures of the various celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence.
“Collins pled guilty to one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to get information. He is serving an 18-month sentence. He would send e-mails that looked like they came from Apple or Google to victims warning them that their accounts were compromised and asking for their account details. He would then download their emails and iCloud backups.”
The hackers became worldwide news back in August of 2014 and shocked people with their abilities that led to hacking into celebrities’ iClouds, leaking almost 500 private pictures involving many of the said nude photos. As Vanity Fair shared back when the scandal was uncovered, the hackers chose to post the photos on several sites, including 4Chan, Reddit, Twitter, and Tumblr.
At the time, Lawrence admitted to being terrified that the pictures which were hacked and shared of her in the nude would affect her rocketing career.
“I was just so afraid,” Jennifer now says. “I didn’t know how this would affect my career.”
The crimes sparked an F.B.I investigation and the culprits have since been brought to justice, yet the victims of the hacks will likely always be affected by the senseless acts.
Shortly following the photos becoming public, Lawrence admitted that she struggled with how to handle the situation and how to respond to fans and media.
“[E]very single thing that I tried to write made me cry or get angry. I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you. I can’t even describe to anybody what it feels like to have my naked body shoot across the world like a news flash against my will. It just makes me feel like a piece of meat that’s being passed around for a profit.”
