OVER THE LAST 20 years or so, paparazzi culture has become pretty intense.
In the mid-2000s, there was hardly a week that went by where a magazine didn’t try and create a scandal from a ‘nip-slip’ when a celebrity was hanging out at the beach or wearing a particularly awkward dress in public.
Around this time, it was not uncommon for paparazzi to hold their cameras low while female celebrities were exiting their cars after award shows or on the way to parties, in order to take photographs up their skirts.
Back in February, This Morning host Holly Willoughby took to Instagram to condemn such behaviour. She shared a photo of herself, Rita Ora, Louise Redknapp and Abby Clancy minding their own business while leaving the Brit Awards and wrote:
At the beginning of the night we held white roses and walked down a red carpet full of the hope and pride that comes with the #TimesUp campaign… at the end of the night, cameras were held low to get a photo up our skirts… Time’s apparently up on #TimesUp
Now, Laura Whitmore has joined Holly in speaking out about ‘upskirting’.
Yesterday, she shared an article about an American man who was arrested in Georgia for taking photographs up women’s skirts in a Walmart store. Laura added:
This is horrible… and what’s worse, in the UK he could get paid by a paper and [the photos] would be printed, shaming the women.
She then tweeted that nearly 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for ‘upskirting’ to be added to the UK’s Sexual Offences Act 2003.
In just over two weeks, the British government will have the opportunity to make upskirting illegal.
Finally, Laura added that upskirting is a ‘violation of privacy’ and ‘degrading’.
