Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, and Kate Upton were among a handful of celebrities whose nude photos were leaked late Sunday afternoon following what appears to be a large-scale hack that may have taken several months to pull off.
The photos first appeared on a 4Chan thread (very NSFW). So far, only Lawrence's publicist Bryna Rifkin has confirmed, in an official statement to BuzzFeed, that the photos were of her client:
This is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence.
The leaked photos were allegedly obtained via a massive hack of Apple's iCloud. They were then posted on 4chan by users offering more explicit material in exchange for bitcoin payments.
"The hacker on 4chan is also claiming to have explicit videos of Lawrence, and claims to have over 60 nude selfies of the Oscar-winning actress," BuzzFeed reported Sunday.
Former Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice took to Twitter to say the photos leaked of her were fake. The tweet has racked up thousands of retweets in support of the actress and songwriter.
These so called nudes of me are FAKE people. Let me nip this in the bud right now. *pun intended*
— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) August 31, 2014
A master list of all of the celebrities whose phones were apparently obtained is circulating the internet. It includes Cara Delevingne, Kim Kardashian, and Mary-Kate Olsen.
