Natalie Morales, who plays professional tennis player Rosemary Casals in the just-released Battle of the Sexes, called out a paparazzi photographer for some particularly creepy photos they took of her at the film’s premiere.
“So someone sent me photos of me having what they called a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at last weekend’s premiere of Battle of the Sexes, which was one of the happiest moments of my life thus far,” Morales tweeted in a thread about how disgusted she was with the photos. “These are pictures they PURPOSELY took up my skirt TO GET A SHOT of my vag.”
While laws have grown successfully more strict in the past few years regarding paparazzi photos of celebrity children (George Clooney recently threatened legal action against photographers who took pictures of his kids), when it comes to invasive photos of celebrities, especially at publicized events, the law is a lot more forgiving.
“If somebody jumps my fence and takes a picture through my window of me naked, that’s illegal, but the photos can still be everywhere the next day, and that makes no sense!” Jennifer Lawrence told reporters on a Hunger Games press tour.
Last year Emma Watson spoke about how British tabloid photographers took upskirt photos of her on her 18th birthday. “If they had published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal, but because I had just turned 18 they were legal,” she told press.
Jezebel has reached out to Natalie Morales for further comment and will update this post if she responds.
Update, 9/27/17: On Tuesday Morales posted a longer statement about the photos to Twitter: