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While famous personalities from the world of entertainment, sports and politics enjoy fame, it doesn’t provide fans, followers or paparazzi a right over their personal lives. The recent Virat Kohli incident, which he dubbed as ‘absolute invasion of privacy’, is not new. We take a look at some similar incidents from the past.
Intruder alert
Almost like Virushkha’s hotel room security breach, a similar incident happened with George Clooney and his attorney wife Amal Clooney. A person entered their home by Lake Como, Italy, in 2017 to get a picture of their newborn twins for a French magazine. The new dad issued a statement, “Over the last week photographers from a magazine scaled our fence, climbed a tree and illegally took pictures of our infants inside our home. Make no mistake the photographers, the agency and the magazine will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The safety of our children demands it.”
Actress Jaya Bachchan was also quite upfront about her family’s personal space a week ago on Diwali, as she ran down paparazzi gathered around their mansion to click pictures.
In 2017, Taylor Swift’s relationship with boyfriend Joe Alwyn was revealed by paparazzi after they were spotted in a hotel room in Swift’s hometown, Nashville. Similarly, after Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif went for a private vacation to Ibiza, Spain, in 2013, pictures of Katrina in red and white bikini, and Ranbir in shorts got leaked on social media.
The actress put out an open letter in which she wrote, “The pictures were taken while I was on holiday by someone who, in an act of cowardice, has shot without permission and then used the pictures for commercial gain... I request that all media running these pictures, please refrain from doing so.”
In February 2022, photos of actor Hrithik Roshan’s ‘intimate’ dinner with actress Saba Azad went viral, much to his dismay. Singer Justin Bieber threw punches at photographers trying to take his pictures with model Kendall Jenner during a dinner date. It was not the first time; Bieber had altercations with fans and paps previously too!
After Jennifer Lawrence was targeted in a 2013 hacking incident, which made her private photographs public, she addressed the bigger intrusions of privacy issue, “I know what entails a celeb’s life, but wasn’t sure I would feel anxiety every time on opening my front door. Being chased or surrounded by 10 men feels invasive...”
Mommy duties
Jennifer Garner blames the paparazzi for creating a ‘traumatising’ experience for her three kids. Actress Halle Berry shared the same passion for her children and they worked to get a law in place, which would prohibit the photography of children without the permission of their parents. “We’re moms here who are just trying to protect our children. These are little innocent children who didn’t ask to be celebrities. They didn’t ask to be thrown into this game...We don’t have a law in place to protect them from this,” Berry had told California legislators in 2013.
The following year, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell took their fight to maintain their daughters’ anonymity to various news networks.
In October last year, Blake Lively called out paparazzi who were following her daughters. “You said you would stop. You personally promised me. This is not casual appreciation. You are exploiting very young children. Please. Delete. Please. Some parents are okay with this. We are not.”
No tracking
Emma Watson has a strict no-photo policy even when fans approach her on the streets. “If someone takes my photograph and posts it, within two seconds, they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within 10 meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data,” she explained.
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