If Ariana Grande has truly bypassed the ongoing nudes scandal, then she certainly has a right to gloat.
That would mean the hacker and individuals happily passing around supposed pictures of the 21-year-old singer have been successfully duped.
It also means that Grande has the good fortune to be spared tweets calling her a whore and asking her why she’s so “stupid” that she’d take sexual pictures of herself, even if she never intended those pictures to be spread around among strangers.
It wasn’t enough for Grande to emphatically deny that the nudes were her own. She took to Twitter to remark snidely, “my lil ass is a lot cuter than that lmao”.
Let’s take a step back, shall we?
to every1 going on about my "nudes" & my "m&g prices" neither are real! my lil ass is a lot cuter than that lmao & tour details r comin soon
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) September 2, 2014
If Grande is telling the truth and she has no legitimate part of the leaked nudes, that really wouldn’t change the fact that somebody’s private pictures are part of this ongoing celebrity nudes leak.
This would simply mean the hacker could have snagged images from some unsuspecting lookalike, either believing those images belonged to Grande or perhaps hoping to earn additional “street cred” through pretending he stole nude photos of Grande.
If this person did not consent to share her pictures, then whether her butt looks as cute as Grande’s is hardly the issue.
Because it doesn’t change the fact that someone had her privacy violated along with Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and a barrage of other women celebrities.
Does the fact that this person is not famous make it somehow okay to poke fun at her body?
The alleged leaked nude pictures of Ariana Grande are 'fake,' her rep tells Just Jared. Get the story: http://t.co/hvi00RPwXI
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) September 1, 2014
Is this REALLY the most mature response that Grande can muster in the face of a gross sexual violation of a group of women, some of them her colleagues in the entertainment industry?
I totally get it.
What woman wouldn’t be pissed that the fame she worked SO HARD for could be threatened by something as inconveniently timed as an unwanted nude scandal?
After all, the sexual self-expression of women is often something that people are more than happy to beat women upside the head for daring to indulge in. Even in private and with husbands.
But the fact that the instinct was to attack a nameless potential victim rather than the people responsible for the scandal is very telling.
Perhaps an apology is owed to Grande for entangling her in this ugly situation. But if someone out there is a victim of this hacker, then it’s fair to say Grande owes her an apology.
An apology, and not a judgmental remark about what her behind should or shouldn’t look like.