Jennifer Lawrence had already carved a name as a fierce advocate for equal pay and women’s rights by 2017; her crusade had clinched a $20 million payday for Passengers, dwarfing her co-star and a much older male actor Chris Pratt’s $12 million despite. That triumph had introduced Hollywood to her mettle, yet her resolve soon went on to stretch beyond civil victories and plunged into the criminal fray.
Giving rise to a dark Hollywood saga of lecherous misconducts, a cataclysmic breach had struck the industry in 2014 — n*de photos of Lawrence and other female stars had surfaced online, pilfered from private iCloud accounts. Though, without flinching, The Hunger Games star exhibited a fierce hunger for justice as she became the voice of reckoning and demanded stricter laws. And her outrage successfully illuminated the grim underbelly of celebrity privacy.
Lawrence, who had snagged an Academy Award at 22, once held a no-nudity clause, a shield shattered when intimate shots, meant for a lover, had spilled into public view. The American Hustle star has since transpired past the ordeal — the towering 5′ 9″ actress bared her curvaceous body in No Hard Feelings and Red Sparrow, flaunting lingerie, full-frontal n*dity, and lingering close-ups of her naked butt in a room full of co-stars and crew. Yet those choices had been hers, scarcely a comparable case to the violation of years prior.
That scandal, dubbed “The Fappening” in reference to mas*urbation, had ensnared 240 victims, such as Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Kaley Cuoco. The Silver Linings Playbook actress stood central, her fervor unyielding amid the storm.
On a peripheral note, the leak’s fallout had proven incredulous, but consent’s absence had rendered it a crime beyond comparison in Lawrence’s eyes. She immediately contacted authorities and publicly declared her stance to have the perverts behind the scandal prosecuted. And soon, the hacker, George Garofano, one of five charged, deservingly faced her wrath.
Lawrence’s skeptical and unapologetic approach led to comparisons of the leakage with sexual offenses, silencing people like Emily Ratajkowski who, despite being a fellow victim, argued that people pleasuring themselves with actresses’ naked pictures shouldn’t feel guilty.
Thankfully, it was Lawrence’s viewpoint that won over the authorities and after years of investigation, Garofano, along with four others, pleaded guilty between 2016 and 2018 to phishing more than accounts. All the perpetrators were fined and sentenced to eight to thirty-four months in prison.
And it was Jennifer Lawrence leading strong women that had precipitated their downfall. Their stance that had eviscerated any room for excuses and even inspired Apple CEO Tim Cook to shift to a design more protective firewall for iCloud.
