Breaking her silence in a new interview with Vanity Fair, the Oscar-winning actress decried the invasion of privacy. "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime," she told Vanity Fair's Sam Kashner. "It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That's why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody's mind is to make a profit from it. It's so beyond me."
While a number of other victims of the leak made public statements after the photos were posted online, Lawrence declined to comment until now, revealing, "every single thing that I tried to write made me cry or get angry. I started to write an apology, but I don't have anything to say I'm sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you."
In the interview, Lawrence said that even people she knew personally took advantage of the situation. "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, 'Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.' I don't want to get mad, but at the same time I'm thinking, I didn't tell you that you could look at my naked body."
She added, "Just because I'm a public figure, just because I'm an actress, does not mean that I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It's my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can't believe that we even live in that kind of world."
Lawrence's photos were among the first wave of numerous stolen image leaks, with stars including Amber Heard, Ariana Grande, Kaley Cuoco, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian also reportedly targeted. Reddit eventually closed the thread where many of the photos were being posted, but the countermeasure took days. The pictures were believed to have been stolen from the celebrities' personal Apple accounts, but Apple maintains that its iCloud service was not breached in the attack.
Google has been threatened with a lawsuit for more than $100 million for failing to remove the stolen images in a timely fashion, according to a letter sent by LA-based lawyer Marty Singer. "Google is making millions and profiting from the victimization of women," Singer alleged in an Oct. 1 letter sent to Google executives. "As a result of your blatantly unethical behavior, Google is exposed to significant liability and both compensatory and punitive damages that could well exceed One Hundred Million Dollars ($100,000,000)."
Google responded in a statement: "We've removed tens of thousands of pictures -- within hours of the requests being made -- and we have closed hundreds of accounts. The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing people's private photos is not one of them."