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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Gabrielle Union was "mortified" over the nude pictures of her stolen from her iCloud account and shared online by hackers. The 42-year-old actress addressed her involvement in this year's massive celebrity photo leak in her interview for the December issue of Cosmopolitan, where she opened up about the time she was raped and told the publication she is "fighting back."
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Union's name appeared on the master list that was released along with the first batch of leaked photos, which prominently targeted Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence and model Kate Upton. Union said the photos came weeks after her wedding to Miami Heat basketball player Dwyane Wade and that her honeymoon was "plagued by thoughts of when I would get hit."
Her pictures came out three weeks later, when the second batch of images was published on the weekend of Sept. 20. She was targeted alongside Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Hudgens, Hayden Panettiere and others.
"All of them had been shot and deleted years ago. Yet there they were, online for the world to see. I felt extreme anxiety, a complete loss of control. I suddenly understood that deleting things means nothing," Union said.
The actress goes on to say she "felt an urgent need to speak out" about the incident.
"I didn't do anything wrong -- no matter what people describe to me, 'It's your fault, you're stupid to take nude photos, that's what happens when you're a celebrity' -- all this nonsense. ... They're criminals," she wrote.
"What you do with your own body is your choice. Period. There's no gray matter there," she said. "And when someone takes your choice away and your power away over your own body, it's a crime. Period. A hacking scandal? We're lessening it, making it more palatable for mass consumption, but it's a crime."
The actress later reveals the photo incident "was not the first time [she] had been violated," and recounts the time she was raped while in college.
"People rallied around me with sympathy and support, but I didn't want to feel like a victim," she said. "I helped get the rapist prosecuted. I finished college. I started my career. And later, I spoke out about the attack, even though it made me feel physically ill to do so. It still does. But it's important. I was raised to speak up."
Union plans to turn both incidents into something positive, because for her, "bad things happen to people every day" and "It's what we do with them that counts."
