Last week, actress Blake Lively slammed paparazzi for ignoring boundaries and stalking her children in a comment on a since-deleted Instagram post from Daily Mail Australia.
Blake Lively accused the press and paparazzi of being “deceitful.”
Blake Lively began the comment by setting the record straight for the public. She opened, “You edit together these images to look like I’m happily waving. But that is deceitful. The real story is: My children were being stalked by men all day.” She then described that the paparazzi were “jumping out. And then hiding.”
Even random people stood up for Blake Lively’s kids and against the photographers. According to Lively, “a stranger on the street got into words with them because it was so upsetting for her to see.” When Lively tried to “calmly approach” a specific paparazzo, he “would run away” only to “jump out again at the next block.”
She then asked a very pertinent question, writing, “Do you do background checks on the photographs you pay to stalk children?” She continued, “Where is your morality here? I would like to know. Or do you simply not care about the safety of children?”
Blake Lively pleaded with the press to do better and asked that the paparazzi “leave my kids alone.”
Blake Lively said the whole experience was “frightening,” and called on Daily Mail Australia to “tell the whole story. At minimum, listen to your followers. They too understand this is dark and upsetting that you pay people to stalk children. Please stop paying grown-a** men to hide and hunt children. There are plenty of pictures you could’ve published without the kids. Please delete. C’mon. Get with the times.”
Gigi Hadid has spoken up on similar issues of privacy for her daughter.
In a viral open letter, supermodel Gigi Hadid called on “paparazzi, press and beloved fan accounts” to “blur” the face of her daughter. She explained, “You know we have never intentionally shared our daughter’s face on social media. Our wish is that she can choose how to share herself with the world when she comes of age and that she can live as normal of a childhood as possible, without worrying about a public image that she has not chosen.”
She knows that avoiding posting her face is “an extra effort” but it’s one she finds important, and “as a new mum, I just want the best for my baby, as all parents do.” Gigi Hadid continued by saying, “I hope this can continue the conversation to protect minors in the media, even if they come from a public family.”