Bella Thorne Thanked The FBI For "Searching Tirelessly" For The Hacker Who Allegedly Threatened To Leak Her Nude Photos, After His Arrest
Two years after an unidentified hacker allegedly gained access to Bella Thorne's social media accounts and blackmailed her, the actor spoke out about the suspect's recent arrest.
The Justice Department announced yesterday that Joseph O'Connor, a 22-year-old from the UK, had been apprehended by National Police in Spain.
Bella's Twitter and Snapchat accounts were compromised in 2019. At the time, she released nude photos of herself alongside a statement explaining that the person who hacked her profiles had threatened to leak them. "I can sleep tonight better knowing I took my power back," she wrote.
Following the news of Joseph's arrest, Bella thanked the FBI for pursuing an investigation into "the person who made [her] life and others' a living hell" in a lengthy Instagram caption. It also touched on the ways her hacker's actions, and the public's response to her nude images, were emotionally damaging and inherently sexist.
"I have felt violated many times in my life, but I thought I didn't have a way out, so I made a choice. My choice," she shared. "A choice I didn't want to make but felt I had to because I wouldn't spend another day feeling someone was taking away from me my body, my soul, my mental health, and my love and hope for the world."
"Today I woke up with hope again, and a weight lifted off my shoulders," Bella continued. "But with that said, I still need to get something across that I have wanted to say for a long time. "
"For all the people who think because a woman is comfortable with their body and how they portray themselves that they are 'asking for it,' for the people who think 'she deserves it' because she was there or had a beer in her hand or wore a short skirt, and for the people that think because she took the photo she deserves to be humiliated with it - and she deserves for everyone to look at it and inscribe every piece and bit of her in their mind. Or because she took the photo, she deserves that one moment to follow her, taunt her for the rest of her life through every waking moment," she wrote. "To those who made those remarks, they were disgusting. I hope you feel disgusting."
Joseph is accused of Snapchat and TikTok hacks that affected Bella's and TikTok influencer Addison Rae's accounts, according to the New York Times.
He's the fourth person arrested in connection to last summer's Twitter hack, which breached accounts held by Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian, Elon Musk, and others.
my tiktok is hacked :(
