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What it’s like to be a victim of ‘revenge porn’ as a mom: ‘It broke my heart’

“I just want to make sure that my son knows about it from me first.”
Katie Hill was a member of Congress when naked photos of her were published. She ended up resigning. Now she's a mom.
Katie Hill was a member of Congress when naked photos of her were published. She ended up resigning. Now she's a mom.Courtesy Katie Hill
/ Source: TODAY

This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

Danielle Green, 36, can still recall how vulnerable and scared she felt when she was 21, single and pregnant.

“I remember watching my belly grow and begging God not to let me get stretch marks," Green, who is now a mom of two living in Arkansas, tells TODAY.com. "I thought no man would ever love me."

Two years later, Green saw that insecurity exploited when she found intimate photos of herself published on the now-defunct revenge porn website “Is Anyone Up?”

The new mom had no idea the photos had been posted — her brother told her.

“It broke my heart, to hear him tell me that I was on this website and all his friends had seen it,” Green says. “They had topless images of me, along with recent photos of me, my boyfriend, links to my Facebook account and my contact information, including where I lived.”

The website allowed people to leave comments, even encouraging viewers to be cruel and dehumanizing.

“What really affected me the most were the comments,” Green says. "To see people commenting on my stretch marks and my sagging breasts? I can’t even begin to describe the hole I fell into. I immediately thought: ‘I have to kill myself.’"

Green says the thought of leaving her son behind is the only reason she did not die by suicide. Instead, she says she suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks, went to therapy and started medication that helped her. Still, she says she felt “overwhelmed, ashamed and shut down."

“My son stayed with my mom a lot,” she adds. “I was in survival mode. It really did impact the bond I had with my child — I just didn’t feel like I was a capable mother.”

Danielle Green's son was bullied after his peers discovered "revenge porn" of her online.
Danielle Green's son was bullied after his peers discovered "revenge porn" of her online.Courtesy Danielle Greene

What is revenge porn?

“‘Revenge porn’ is a troubling misnomer for what is more accurately described as nonconsensual pornography or image-based sexual abuse,” Dr. Mary Anne Franks, President and Legislative & Tech Policy Director for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, an organization that fights online abuse, tells TODAY.com. “It is the unauthorized distribution of private, intimate images.”

An estimated 10 million Americans have been either threatened with or victims of nonconsensual image sharing, according to a 2016 study published by the Data & Society Research Institute, a nonprofit research group. 

Katie Hill, 35, is one of those Americans.

Hill was a member of Congress when naked photos of her were published by The Daily Mail, a London-based outlet, in late September of 2019.

"My pictures were all over the internet," Hill tells TODAY.com. "It was the worst thing that I could have ever imagined. I became suicidal. I just ... couldn't."

On Oct. 28, 2019, Hill resigned, saying her “abusive” and estranged husband colluded with “hateful political operatives” to launch "a smear campaign built around cyber exploitation.”

Hill’s ex-husband has denied the allegations. In 2020, Hill sued her ex-husband, The Daily Mail and RedState.com for “nonconsensual porn.” The Daily Mail and RedState's attorneys argued that the publication of the photos was protected speech about a public official. The lawsuit was dismissed by a judge who cited first amendment rights as grounds for her decision.

“I couldn’t leave my apartment. I was afraid of going out in public,” Hill says of the days and weeks following the published photos and her resignation. “There’s a physical weight that manifests — to call it anxiety or depression isn’t sufficient. It’s trauma I’ve spent the last three years working through. It's sexual assault.”

Katie Hill with her son, who just turned 1. She knows someday she'll have to explain to him what "revenge porn" is.
Katie Hill with her son, who just turned 1. She knows someday she'll have to explain to him what "revenge porn" is.Courtesy Katie Hill

'If I have a kid, how am I going to explain this?"

On Jan. 2, 2021, Hill gave birth to her son, Finn, whom she shares with her partner, Alex Thomas.

Now that she's a mother, the long-lasting impact of revenge porn has taken on a new meaning — Hill knows there will come a time when she'll have to discuss the published photos with her now-1-year-old son.

"My partner and I have discussed it," she adds. "I just want to make sure that my son knows about it from me first."

Hill shares that she has endometriosis, and at one point was told she couldn't have children without medical intervention. She had dealt with years of infertility, so when she found out she was unexpectedly pregnant she was overjoyed.

Still, she says, the thought her future child one day finding those pictures was present in that moment.

"You might not think about it actively, but you're aware of it," she explains. "I was so happy, but I was so terrified, thinking of how I'm ultimately going to explain something I'm ashamed of. The best thing I've ever done is being a mom, but we all bring different past traumas to parenthood — this happens to be mine."

Green understands — her oldest son is now 14 and knows about her naked photos. Green says she "broke the news to him" after she decided to participate in the Netflix documentary "The Most Hated Man on the Internet," which examines the website where her photos were published, its rise and its downfall.

"He was really taken aback," she shares. "There were some kids at school who bullied him about it. They were like: 'Yeah, we're going to look up your mom's porn images.' He was really upset about that."

While the discussion was difficult and the bullying heartbreaking, Green says as a mom it's her "job to have these important conversations" with her son.

"It's really important for me to equip my son with the tools he needs to empower himself, and see through these people and recognize that because someone is treating you this way, that means something is very wrong inside them — it's not a reflection of you," she explains. "That's how you let go of the shame."

What happened to Green also informs her parenting and family discussions about misogyny and consent. Still, she was surprised to learn that when her son was in 8th grade, someone claiming to be a 10th grade girl sent him nudes via PlayStation.

"I didn't know about it, until he told me he broke up with her and he deleted her nudes and let her know he deleted them," she said. "He told me: 'You'd be proud of me, mom.' We're not going to keep our kids from doing this stuff — we did this stuff as teenagers. So for me, it's about having those discussions with your kids."

Hill says her experiences will inform her decisions as a mother, too, and hopes that when her son does learn about the photos he realizes that "his mom lived a whole life before he was born."

"I'm in no way perfect and I made choices that I wish I hadn't, and that's part of what I'm going to try to impart on him," she says. "And hopefully he does think that whatever I have done since then are things he is proud of."

'Victims are left without a clear path to justice'

So far, 48 states, Washington, D.C. and Guam have all criminalized revenge porn. Some experts say the laws don’t go far enough to protect victims.

“The majority of these laws apply only to cases where the perpetrator is motivated by a personal desire to hurt the victim, even though our research shows that nearly 80% of perpetrators have other motivations,” Franks says. “The definition and classification of this crime can vary widely from state to state, making it difficult for victims to know how and where they can seek help.”

In Green's case, the owner of the site where her topless photos were published, Hunter Moore, plead guilty to identity theft and computer hacking charges in February of 2015. In November of the same year, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine.

The site was ultimately taken down.

Green's outcome was, by many, considered positive and the result of decades of advocacy work and cultural reckonings, but it's not universal.

After her resignation, Hill established a political action committee named Her Time, with a focus on passing legislation that impacts women and helping women run for political office. One thing she'd like to do is get legislation passed that would make revenge porn a federal crime.

Such a law would better define the crime, Franks explains, and provide "greater resources for training and enforcement" and prevent "broad immunity to tech platforms for their role in online abuse."

In March of 2022, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the SHIELD Act in the Senate, a bill to make revenge porn a federal crime. It was eventually attached to the 2022 omnibus bill and then ultimate cut.

"Every day that goes by without a federal criminal law against nonconsensual pornography is a day that sexual abusers feel free to act with impunity," Franks says, "and victims are left without a clear path to justice."

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