The latest woman in Hollywood to fall victim to this particularly insidious type of violation, former Bachelor contestant Amanda Stanton has had private nude photographs stolen and circulated. As she tearfully revealed in an Instagram Story on Tuesday, the entire experience has led her to struggle to the point of “losing sleep, having no motivation” and simply not feeling like herself. “The past week has been rough for me. I won’t get into detail but my anxiety is out of control and I’ve been extremely stressed over some things that are completely out of my control,” she shared with her social media followers.
According to Stanton, she first heard from the hacker shortly after he’d illegally obtained pre-op photos of her from a medical facility. “About three weeks ago, when we first moved into our new place, I woke up randomly in the middle of the night and looked at my email,” she began. “I had about four emails from a random person who I didn’t know who had said that he hacked into my doctor’s database from when I had my breast augmentation.” Stanton said the hacker harassed her “every single day” in an attempt to extort her. “He had some nude photos of me in the doctor’s office, which is just stupid because they’re medical photos,” she continued of her procedure from February 2018. “But he was basically asking for a lot of money and threatening to send the photos to everybody who I follow.”
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Ultimately, the hacker followed through on his threats, disseminating the photos to a slew of Stanton’s contacts.
“He sent them to my friend’s boyfriend, he sent them to people who I work with, he sent them to producers at ABC. And it was just kind of out of my control and there was nothing I could do about it, so if figured that I might as well just address it,” Stanton emotionally explained, noting that she’d been receiving messages from people the hacker had sent the photos. “I just want to say, thank you, and I’m sorry that I haven’t responded to everybody. It’s just been hard explaining the story so many times and I just don’t want to give somebody like that power over me and I hope that maybe, just by addressing it, he’ll stop.”
But in coming forward and sharing her story, Stanton hopes to reclaim the narrative and take her power back. “Praying that I find peace this week and if anyone else is going through something similar, I’m praying for you too🙏🏼❤️,” she added. “I know I don’t normally post this kind of stuff but I’m going to be more real with you guys, even if it’s a little scary.”
Stanton isn’t the first female celebrity to be targeted by hackers for private nude photos and, unfortunately, likely won’t be the last. In 2014, four hackers were involved in a phishing scheme that duped people into revealing their usernames and passwords. In doing so, they gained access to almost 600 online storage accounts and stole private information — making it the biggest celebrity hacking incident in recent history. Those who were violated by having personal nude photos taken and released included Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, Kaley Cuoco and Jill Scott. Some justice was served, though. In August 2018, a Connecticut man by the name of George Garofano, 26, was sentenced to eight months in prison for his part in the 2014 hacking scandal.
While it’s unclear at this point whether Stanton has involved the police in her situation, the hope, of course, is that her hacker will also be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
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