Emily Ratajkowski is speaking out about how "traumatizing" it was for her to have her personal nude photos leaked in 2014.
The model, speaking on her podcast, "High Low," made an entire episode titled "Should I Start an OnlyFans?" In that conversation, she spoke about how little control she felt she had over her own body after her private photos were shared online.
"I thought my career was over," she said. "It was at a point where I really wanted to be a serious actress, and everyone was telling me that I'd been photographed naked so much that it was gonna be hard for people to take me seriously."
"And there was a lot of conversation that these photos had been leaked intentionally, a lot of slut-shaming. And they were extremely intimate photos; they were intended for someone that I was in love with. And it was horrible. I can't tell you."
Ratajkowski also said, "It was one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life. I lost a patch of hair the week it happened."
The photo leak wasn't the only time she's had images of her shared without her permission. "I've had books of photos of me sold without my consent, I've had people profit off of my image—usually men—and I've got no cut off it; actually, a lot of the times it's cost me money."
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She's paid to hire lawyers to get the illegally obtained nude photos taken down from the internet, and she's also bought art pieces of herself that were made without her consent.
Ratajkowski even said that she's been sued by paparazzi after she posted photos of herself that they took—and she explicitly added that she doesn't approve of paparazzi photos being taken of herself or her one-year-old son.
"I have had extremely brutal things happen to me around this," she continued, "particularly in my 20s, particularly when I was really vulnerable, and I wasn't able to see these kinds of situations for what they were. I blame myself, I didn't have the resources I have now to fight back, and that is part of the reason why I'm interested in OnlyFans."
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She admitted that while she doesn't consider working on OnlyFans an act of feminism, she definitely sees the appeal of doing something to take back control of one's own image.
"It's really depressing, honestly," she said later in the podcast. "What I hate, what happens when we have these conversations, I often quickly find, there's this sort of turning against the women who have chosen to partake in this system and to try to make the most of the world as it is."
Ratajkowski did say that there have been some "real advantages" to sexualizing herself, including receiving the opportunity to have a podcast to talk about these kinds of issues that are important to her, but that when she mentioned that she was considering starting an OnlyFans account, her manager strongly disapproved.
That, she said, caused her to want to start an account even more.
"I want to be in control," she insisted. "I want to be the one who's profiting off of my image and my body first."
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By the end of the episode, she still hadn't made up her mind about whether or not she was going to start an OnlyFans account.
The popular model and actress broke onto the scene when she starred in Robin Thicke's music video for his song "Blurred Lines," and she's been growing more and more successful ever since.
In recent years, she's been using her platform extensively to discuss social issues that are important to her, most notably misogyny in Hollywood.
