George Clooney released an open letter on November 4, addressed to “ TheDaily Mail and other publications,” asking for restraint in photos and other mentions of his children.
The letter empathises with 29-year-old actor Billie Lourd, the daughter of late Carrie Fisher, whose year-old daughter’s photos were published without consent and then taken down as per the actor’s request.
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Clooney writes, “Having just seen photos of Billie Lourd’s 1 year-old baby in your publication, and the fact that you subsequently took those pictures down, we would request that you refrain from putting our children’s faces in your publication. I am a public figure and accept the oftentimes intrusive photos as part of the price to pay for doing my job. Our children have made no such commitment.”
He adds, “The nature of my wife [international law and human rights barrister Amal Clooney]’s work has her confronting and putting on trial terrorist groups and we take as much precaution as we can to keep our family safe. We cannot protect our children if any publication puts their faces on their cover. We have never sold a picture of our kids, we are not on social media and never post pictures because to do so would put their lives in jeopardy. Not paranoid jeopardy but real world issues, with real world consequences. We hope that you would agree that the need to sell advertisement isn’t greater than the need to keep innocent children from being targeted..”
Other forces in the movement
Clooney and Lourd join other famous parents such as Mindy Kaling, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, Kristin Bell and Dax Shepherd, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik, Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, and Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom. The general consensus is that children should be off-limits.
Mindy Kaling has been very clear on her daughter Katherine’s privacy, “I'm on social media and like sharing with people what my interests are and how my day’s going and all of that, but I do feel entitled to have privacy about my daughter and my relationships.”
In July, actor Blake Lively lambasted Daily Mail Australia after they posted pictures of her children on their official children, despite her and husband Ryan Reynolds’ continued requests that their children stay out of the press.
The tabloid shared the picture collage highlighting the faces of Blake Lively’s children. The collage showed James and Inez in a stroller as Blake held Betty in her arms, as per Just Jared. It added that another photo showed her seemingly smiling brightly and waving at the cameras.
The A Simple Favor actor took to the comments section of the post, “You edit together these images together to look like I'm happily waving. But that is deceitful. The real story is: My children were being stalked by a men all day. Jumping out. And then hiding. A stranger on the street got into words with them because it was so upsetting for her to see. When I tried to calmly approach the photographer you hired to take these pictures in order to speak to him, he would run away. And jump out again at the next block.”
In a similar incident, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner fired back at paparazzi that photographed her daughter, Willa Jonas, without consent. She shared a video in which she stated, “I am not posting pictures of my daughter and making sure that we can avoid paparazzi at all costs is because I explicitly do not want those photos out there.”
Model-actor Gigi Hadid also penned an open letter in July via her Instagram Stories and requested the paparazzi honour her daughter Khai’s privacy and not share photos of her face. The model wrote, “I know the laws change State to State [in USA], and I’ve seen some paparazzi photos of kids in NYC with their faces blurred — but, from asking around, I believe that comes down to the integrity of the photographer, publications of fans sharing the image... Our wish is that she can choose to share herself with the world when she comes of age and that she can live as normal of a childhood as possible... I hope this can continue the conversation to protect minors in the media.”
