17 yo posts photos of nude footballers

Okay, so for the past week there's been a certain story I've been inadvertently following. A 17 year old girl decided to post lewd photos of AFL (a kind of football game that makes no sense) players. She posted them via her Facebook account and of course, the shit hit the fan.

There's a ton of articles, it's hard to find one that actually encompasses the whole crazy saga, but here's a list if you want to follow: Google's news search results

I'll have to post snippets so you can understand what the hell is going on:

Quote :

The explicit photographs were published on the girl's Facebook page this week, along with a shot of St Kilda player Zac Dawson partly clad. The club says the photos were taken in Miami and were stolen from teammate Sam Gilbert's computer.

The teenager says she took the photos herself in a Melbourne hotel room.

The St Kilda Football Club on Thursday started Federal Court action to prevent the release of further images of its players.... The girl said she released the images as an act of revenge because of her treatment by an AFL player, other teammates, St Kilda and the AFL after she said she fell pregnant.

So allegedly she stole the photos from one of the guy's computers (no idea how), accused one of the players of getting her pregnant and ending up with a stillborn (as far as I know, the police have proven this false, or at least everyone has decided to ignore that part).

Quote :

The 17-year-old, who is on holiday in Queensland, had ignored a Federal Court decision ordering her and Facebook to stop publishing the explicit photographs of the players.

The girl had said she received no notification to pull down the images of skipper Nick Riewoldt and teammates Zac Dawson and Nick Dal Santo, which the club said were stolen from the laptop of teammate Sam Gilbert.

The girl, a former champion athlete, had no such excuse yesterday in a case of cyber fightback, when Brad Ross, representing St Kilda and Gilbert, posted notification of the court hearing on social media site USTREAM. She had used the site earlier in the day to post videos of herself in a call for support.

Documents telling her to attend the hearing were also posted to her father at his email address. ''You should be at court tomorrow. If you do not attend, the court can make orders in your absence. You should have legal representation tomorrow,'' the lawyer said in the post.

A spokesman for St Kilda said the club was seeking an extension of the order, issued on Monday, to halt the publication of the images.

The unrepentant girl, who was just finishing her holiday in Queensland, said she would not be back in time for the hearing. ''No chance, considering I don't even land in Melbourne until 5.30pm. Ha!'' she said on Twitter. The girl vowed to continue posting explicit pictures of players, probably by the end of the week.

Yep... she was ordered by court to cut it out, and she decided to have to go 'neener-neener' and ignore them. She also posted videos during this whole saga, screaming like a maniac and laughing at the court orders. The AFL offered her psychological help as well (which is just a tiny bit hilarious to me if you know anything about AFL).

After her holiday, however...

Quote :

The teenage girl at the centre of the AFL nude pictures scandal says she is seeking a deal to tell her side of the story before she releases further images of players from up to eight clubs.

But the saga has come at a high personal cost, with the 17-year-old's parents telling her they would not speak to her again because of the way she released two candid photos of three high-profile AFL players.

The girl, looking drawn and pale despite a holiday in Queensland with her family, arrived at Melbourne Airport on Thursday night to a barrage of questions from reporters.

But she remained calm, composed and articulate throughout an interview of more than 25 minutes.

"I'm just waiting for an offer from someone," she said. "I'm not looking for money. I'm looking for a deal to tell my side of the story. I don't want to create lies ..."

Her family have basically kicked her out of home, the AFL has accused her of having "issues", she's decided to be stubborn despite a court order and post more photos (not to mention she may be sued by the players) - but my biggest question is WHY? I dunno what exactly her motivations are, she's approached several media outlets offering the photos, but has yet to accept any money (supposedly she was looking for prices, but I'm not sure). It really is pretty crazy. I guess I'll be looking forward to whatever she says in her defense.

Quote :

Asked if she would do the same thing if she had her time over, she said: "That's a really tough question. I'm not even really sure. I probably still would have done it except not via my Facebook. I would have done it anonymously because I'm really scared about what's going to happen."

Jeez, and here I thought the trials and tribulations of Brett Favre's cock was interesting!

erm... not that I find Brett Farvre's dick interesting, it's the story around it that's interesting... youknowwhatimeanrite?

You've gotta keep us posted in this one Raine!

Well. Once I get past wondering why one of the footballers had nude pictures of his team mates on his laptop (( know, I know, but one does wonder about these things), I think what we have here is an extremely immature 17-year-old girl who may (or may not) have gotten pregnant by one of these guys (the sudden 'family holiday' seems a bit suspicious), decided to get revenge, and didn't bother to think the matter through.

She's also apparently watched way to much reality TV about women who've gotten revenge against guys by going public with scandals. What she doesn't seem to have grasped is that these revenge attempts seldom end well, and even if the woman does get money and vindication, she's still going to spend the rest of her life being hounded by the press because of how she went about it.

I'm with WD-40 on this-keep us updated.

Also, not wanting to cast aspirations on your home country (I live in the US, and there's something in there about people in glass houses throwing stones), but are people in Australia and NZ ALWAYS this dodgey? Or is it just that the area there is smaller, so if someone does something stupid, it gets more coverage?

WD40 wrote:

You've gotta keep us posted in this one Raine!

It's quite confusing how the media is really foaming at the mouth over this (and thus making it hard to keep up with). She's agreed to destroy all copies she has, but it's still likely she'll get sued by the AFL and the players. Speaking of the players though, they might end up suing each other over who took the photos.

And so far the only other mention of her initial pregnancy claim has been this:

Quote :

In repeated appearances on other social networking sites, the teen said she would defy court orders and would publish more photos she claimed to have of other players.

She failed to deliver on that threat.

The girl said she had taken her action in response to poor treatment she claimed to have received from the AFL when she claimed last May to have been pregnant with twins to a St Kilda player.

Nothing else has been said. I would have thought the media would be all over that. Oh, and as for the whole "I don't want to make money" thing she said:

Quote :

Documents before the court allege that last September she also approached Riewoldt's agent, Ricky Nixon, offering to give him the photo of the player if he paid her $20,000.

Apart from all this though, child welfare groups have gotten involved and spoken out about how she's being treated. She's been receiving death threats, her family has ex-communicated her, and if you hear her voice now, you can tell she's suddenly realised how what she did is probably going to ruin her life. She sounds really scared.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Also, not wanting to cast aspirations on your home country (I live in the US, and there's something in there about people in glass houses throwing stones), but are people in Australia and NZ ALWAYS this dodgey? Or is it just that the area there is smaller, so if someone does something stupid, it gets more coverage?

The Australian media are... well, really strange. On one hand we have what I think are some of the best investigative journalists in the world (seriously, we have so many news shows covering anything and everything), as well as a rather free media that isn't too afraid to speak out on things. On the other, however, the media jumps onto some of the stupidest things here. They love to create circuses around two-bit celebrities breaking up. Hell, just last week before this thing they were all over Shane Warne (previous cricketing captain and "serial love rat") and criticising him over his "affair" with Liz Hurley despite the both of them saying they're separated from their previous partners. And before THAT they were stalking Laura Bingle (the WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YA? girl) for reasons I vaguely remember, but it was stupid.

Well shit, maybe something horrible did happen to her and she decided to take revenge this way because the court system is fucking useless, especially when the culprit is famous. Her parents disowning her? That's fucked.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Well shit, maybe something horrible did happen to her and she decided to take revenge this way because the court system is fucking useless, especially when the culprit is famous. Her parents disowning her? That's fucked.

Ah, now this is where it gets REALLY confusing. I have no idea why the media haven't chased up further on her allegations, considering they're supposed to have been what triggered this whole thing. The most I've really seen is a simple handwave of the issue (that last article was the first time I heard about her carrying twins).

However, there's a few more factors to consider in all this - normally whenever someone makes a claim against a football star here, the media and police instantly vilifies the footballer. This is possibly the first time I've ever seen things the other way around, because the last time a teenager accused a player everyone sided with her although it turned out the claims were false. I'm not sure how scandals against sports stars work in the US and other places, but for the most part it's the players that get hung out to dry. Many of them end up quitting even if they didn't do anything, if only because the damage has already been done to their image.

I hate to sound like I'm making up crap, but another way of looking at it is that she somehow stole the photos, got rejected by the AFL trying to blackmail them for money, and then threw some kind of a tantrum (but then you have to wonder how she got the photos in the first place). Her parents disowning her is a rather curious thing too - do they know she's lying, don't want to be involved in the liability, or is there more to it than that?

Regardless, that poor girl is going to be alone for Christmas fearing for her future.

[First, let's be honest. Online, everyone in any major scandal (and most minor ones) gets raked over the coals. The internet has more than enough trolls and nutjobs to ensure that's going to happen every time.]


For the most part, the mainstream US press goes after the athletes in these scandals. For one thing, a big name caught doing something wrong makes for a much bigger story than a big name being wronged. There's a lot of schadenfreude to be had when someone famous gets in trouble. The other thing is that the press tend to portray people in these stories as archetypes, and these affect the coverage.

For example, just about a year ago, a certain athlete's wife made a very violent attack on her husband. But instead of concentrating on that, the press vilified him for cheating -- which, admittedly, did get them months of fodder -- and she became the "wronged woman" of the story.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Well shit, maybe something horrible did happen to her and she decided to take revenge this way because the court system is fucking useless, especially when the culprit is famous.

Wrong (horrible thing happened to her) + Wrong (blackmail) =/= Right

Not to mention that when this blows up in their face (and it usually does, sooner or later), the fact that they tried to extort money destroys their credibility from the get-go even if the allegation turns out to be completely true.

Drabbler wrote:

For the most part, the mainstream US press goes after the athletes in these scandals. For one thing, a big name caught doing something wrong makes for a much bigger story than a big name being wronged.

At least until said superstar begins their smug, condescending attempts at "apology" and reforming, going on every news channel bawwing about how sad they are about what they did and how they're struggling to reform their lives and how they've found Jesus and how, oh by the way, I just put out a new album/got drafted by a new team/started a new movie project it's really exciting and you should all check it out, but anyway, I'm pretty sorry guys. This is all about me. Victims? Who the hell are they?

I never said two wrongs make a right, dumbfuck. I said just because she did something wrong doesn't mean nothing happened to her.

Cyberwulf wrote:

I never said two wrongs make a right, dumbfuck. I said just because she did something wrong doesn't mean nothing happened to her.

Sure sounded like it to me.

And frankly, I'm tired of your damn attitude. Especially when I didn't start it and made a calm reply to your post.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

I never said two wrongs make a right, dumbfuck. I said just because she did something wrong doesn't mean nothing happened to her.

Sure sounded like it to me.

Maybe you should read more carefully.

Quote :

And frankly, I'm tired of your damn attitude.

Oh, you mean the attitude I apply to pretty much everyone around here when I don't agree with them, or when I think they've said something ridiculous? Be as tired as you want, but don't think I'm changing it for you.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Cyberwulf wrote:

I never said two wrongs make a right, dumbfuck. I said just because she did something wrong doesn't mean nothing happened to her.

Sure sounded like it to me.

Maybe you should read more carefully.

I did. And you know what? It still sounds like you're trying to justify it - in your own words "the courts are fucking useless".

So what alternative should she have done then? You're so keen on putting others on the spot, let's hear what you think she should have said or done differently.

And the wank begins...

Cyberwulf wrote:

Oh, you mean the attitude I apply to pretty much everyone around here when I don't agree with them, or when I think they've said something ridiculous? Be as tired as you want, but don't think I'm changing it for you.

Yeah Spotts, didn't you know you can treat people as horribly as you want and it's okay so long as you spread it around evenly? It's sort of like that time I stole all of my friends' televisions but they didn't get angry because I did it to all of them.

I got to say, Spotts' impression of what Cy said is what I got out of that post as well. The ensuing spat is just like creamy filled badgoodness of WGW.

Cy is the kind of feminist we can't ignore, and that makes us uncomfortable.

It makes us uncomfortable because she's rude, abrasive, and completely out of her gourd with double-standards and hypocrisy rather than ever proving anyone wrong, but hey, as long as we can't ignore it, it's a victory for women everywhere.

Ignoring the Cyberwulf/Spotts spat going on here, and also ignoring the massive, massive problem with what this girl did (and how she's acting, which frankly reminds me of a combination of Meyshi and someone else who is not in tune with reality as we know it), the problem with saying, as Cyberwulf did, "well maybe something happened to this girl -- because the courts are fucking useless, etc, etc.," is that where is the proof? And what was the problem? Was it even something that would be handled in a court?

That's a HUGE assumption right there on Cyberwulf's part, that the girl's complaints are because of illegal behavior (I'm assuming rape, assault, etc) by one (or more) of the footballers towards this girl.

Was she raped by one of these guys? Perhaps; we don't know. However, at this point it would probably be impossible to legally prove that a rape occurred.

Was she having consensual sex with one of these guys, something went wrong in the relationship, and she ended up having a lot of people turned against her? Was she having consensual sex with more than one of them? Again, perhaps. This might be nothing more than an incredibly bad breakup that's being played out in an incredibly bizarre way. Stranger things have happened.

Oh good Christ you people are fucking morons. (Oops Spotts better lecture me on my attitude as if you're my father!) There was a presumption that the girl released these pictures for no reason except to be a bitch. My point, as I restated for Mr Condescension, is that just because she did something bad doesn't mean nothing bad happened to her. Male sports stars + teenage girl = VERY DODGY, especially since there was an alleged pregnancy at one point.

I didn't say there was 'proof' of anything. It's interesting however that the girl's said she'd do it all again, only take greater care to hide her identity. This is in spite of being disowned by her family. My gut tells me there's more to it.

What do I think she should've done? Not release the photos. Because it's WRONG. DUH. Now post your fucking insipid popcorn smilies and think what the hell you want.

Yeah, but now we'll never know what the truth is will we? Her credibility is zero because she asked for money. No one will believe her - not the media, not the courts, no one.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Oh good Christ you people are fucking morons. (Oops Spotts better lecture me on my attitude as if you're my father!) There was a presumption that the girl released these pictures for no reason except to be a bitch.

No, I'm sure she thinks she has a reason. Doesn't mean it's a good one.

Quote :

Male sports stars + teenage girl = VERY DODGY, especially since there was an alleged pregnancy at one point.

An informal overview of Australian age of consent laws. Depending on when everything happened and how old she was versus how old the guy was, what happened between them (IF anything happened, and if it was consensual) could have been legal.

Quote :

I didn't say there was 'proof' of anything. It's interesting however that the girl's said she'd do it all again, only take greater care to hide her identity. This is in spite of being disowned by her family. My gut tells me there's more to it.

And my gut tells me it could be anything from an actual sexual assault/rape to her having a relationship with this guy and there being a nasty breakup. Teenagers (and older people) have taken revenge against exes for bad breakups before.

What I'm finding weird is that when naked photos of female celebrities get leaked, the general narrative is "What was she thinking, letting those photos be taken?"

I'm seeing none of that slut shaming going on here...

ZoZo wrote:

What I'm finding weird is that when naked photos of female celebrities get leaked, the general narrative is "What was she thinking, letting those photos be taken?"

I'm seeing none of that slut shaming going on here...

I would like to know why, simply because it seems very unusual for any member of a team to have naked pictures of their teammates on their computer. I mean I know locker rooms and such are pretty "clothes-optional" places (especially after a game), but still.

Finally, I found some answers on the girl and what happened to her. I may as well post the article here so it will clear things up a bit.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

She has a small love heart tattooed on her inner left wrist, with the words: “Sucess [sic] is the best revenge” – deliberately misspelt, she reckons, because everyone has imperfections.

The marks on her right wrist tell a different tale: five horizontal scars from cuts she gave herself during a drunken night in August, she says, after being spurned by the St Kilda AFL football player she still loves. Look here and she seems the vulnerable 17-year-old victim of men with money and fame. Her tattoo instead points to a woman scorned. Who she is depends on which side you take.

Landing at Melbourne Airport on Thursday – into the firestorm she sparked by making public nude photographs of two Saints players, Nick Riewoldt and Nick Dal Santo – she is a little of both. She courts the media scrum in a short black dress after crying in the car park alone, facing the cameras with her makeup – blue eyeshadow, red lips – still neat. Does she feel like a victim?

“Um, I did, but since I released these photos I feel it's a sort of 50-50 situation. In a way I still feel a victim to what they've done to me but now I feel like in a way they're being portrayed as victims as well because I've released photos of them and breached their privacy in a sense.”

The next day she is ordered by the Federal Court to hand over the nude photos and destroy any copies in her possession. Justice Shane Marshall orders her name be suppressed: “If the court can't protect the children, what can it do?”

In person, she has a child's charms and faults writ large. She is contrary, naive, vain, full of bluster but vulnerable, a lone teen on the wrong side of the biggest game in town. It's hard to know how much of what she says is true. Late night at the airport, the media pack dispersed, she stands alone smoking. We share a taxi into the city, where she will stay the night with a friend.

Between answering prank calls on her mobile phone, she says she is scared by what's ahead of her. “I don't really think about the future . . . because obviously it is not looking very good.”

In a local newspaper article last year she spoke of her success in athletics and her dream of winning a sports scholarship to study in the United States. This year, she says, she went “off the rails” and has been arrested several times for shoplifting, drug use, assault and trespass. She escaped each charge, and feels invincible. “I don't even know what happened. It's just like I woke up one day and decided to be like that. It would start off with getting a fake ID or smoking or going out to nightclubs . . . I was doing sort of glamour modelling as well and I liked that life because for about seven years all I was doing was running. I had never been out before, I didn't really have that many friends and I was sort of, in a way, sheltered from the real world – it was basically eat, sleep and train.

“So then I had a taste of that lifestyle and even more when I met the AFL players . . . It gives you that sort of buzz being around them as well, and then I just couldn't step it down from being up that high.” But, she says, “I think they treat girls pathetically. It's not right at all.”

She was 16 in February when several Saints players visited her high school in Melbourne's south-east for a community camp event. A month later she was at an athletics competition in Sydney when the Saints beat the Swans. She waited with a friend near the change rooms.

“They didn't even question my age from the start because they recognised me from the school clinic. When we went back to the hotel room, [they asked] how old I was and I said, 'I'll be 17 in a few months,' and they were like, 'Oh yeah, OK, that's legal.' ”

Two St Kilda players were later cleared by police and the AFL of any wrongdoing.

Later, she says, she started seeing defender Sam Gilbert. “It made me feel like I was this really special girl who had sort of just been in the right place at the right time. I felt really, I don't know, kind of cool in front of my friends and everything but after a while, after everything had happened, I realised I never want to be in that world again. It's awful.”

In April, she says, she became pregnant with twins but lost both. When the news broke, Gilbert would not return her texts or calls, she says.

“To anyone who has been in love, you can hate them so much but then, at the end of the day, you realise you still love them. The doctors blamed the first miscarriage on stress. I was going through such a hard time with being called a slut and everyone making out I had slept with half of the AFL . . . I got to the point where I was having to take antidepressants and sleeping tablets at night.

“I was not sleeping for days on end. I would just sit up on my laptop reading article after article about myself . . . I was just so obsessed with wanting to know what the world was saying about me and trying to defend myself at the same time.”

She carries around newspaper cuttings on herself in her handbag and posts regular updates to her 12,000 Twitter followers.

Carolyn Worth, convener of Victorian Centres Against Sexual Assault, says the teenager does not fit the typical profile of a sexual assault victim. “I think she perceives herself as a victim of the AFL. It looks as though she feels she has come up against a large corporate entity that basically worked her over and treated her with disrespect.

“I think she's more working as a woman scorned . . . It's a bit like 'fight or flight' – she's fighting. From my perspective she's still a teenager, she's been pregnant allegedly to one of the players, she's had group sex with them and she doesn't look that old – so I wonder what the players were thinking.”

The teenager says she wants to be a spokeswoman for women who feel used and abused by football players.

On Thursday night she and her parents returned to Melbourne from a holiday on the Gold Coast. Her parents left on the bus, leaving her at the airport to face the media. She said they had stopped talking to her since she released the photos online last Monday.

“I guess they knew this was going to happen. Just being an immature 17-year-old, I guess that's how I would describe myself.”

She plans to start a journalism degree in February. But after Friday's court appearance she sat on a park bench, playing with her mobile. “I don't know where to go from here."

By midnight she had found her way, tweeting that she was “so juiced up” on a “big nite out”. Then at 6.30am yesterday she tweeted: “chrissy with da parents todaii xxx.”

Later she explained: "mum invited me over for christmas, only because dad wont be there (main conflict)."

I'm sorry... but all I see is an immature little brat throwing a shit fit. Her parents should not have let her out of their sight and those footballers should have their heads examined. Both are responsible for what happened. Neither party were mature enough to think this through.

And... group sex? That could be where she got the photos from. Which is more tarnish on her credibility and the footballers' intelligence.

And before Cy gets all bent out of shape... choose your battles wisely. Neither party is at fault, but neither party is completely innocent either. This battle is lost.