Melissa John’s has relived her horror after being the victim of a nude photo leak in 2018
(Picture: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)Former Coronation Street star Melissa Johns has relived her horror after intimate photos of her were leaked and made their way onto a fetish site.
The actress, who was born without a right hand and forearm, said she was “mortified” when she became the victim of a nude photo leak after her iCloud was hacked in 2018.
Johns – who played Kate Connor’s ex-girlfriend Imogen Pascoe on the long-running ITV soap in 2017 – detailed the incident during an appearance on Loose Women on Friday.
The 32-year-old told the panel show: "I was mortified. It was scary and terrifying.
"When someone disrespects your privacy like that and you find out your body in its purest form is out there on the internet for the whole world to see, however you think you’ll feel, you feel.
"I cried and cried and cried. It felt like I had no control over it.”
Addressing the what happened at the time, the vocal disabilities activist chose to look for a silver lining.
She said she hoped the pictures show people that disabled people “send photos, have sex lives and engage in intimate exchanges”.
“I am proud of my body. It is beautiful. And I am entitled to enjoy it and to have a personal and a romantic life just as all women - of all different body shapes and sizes - are entitled to do.
"If any good has come out of this, it is to show that women with all different types of body shapes and sizes send photos, have sex lives, engage in intimate exchanges in the same way as everybody else.”
She has even drawn from her experience to create a one-woman show shining a light on “body shaming” and “slut-shaming” within society.
Her upcoming show Snatched explores the taboo of sex and disability while advocating female sexuality.
“My body is unique, beautiful, and representative of what is still a very under-represented demographic of people in our society today,” the former Celebrity MasterChef contestant said.
“So if this goes some way to dismantling discrimination, and showing that disabled bodies can be beautiful and even sexual, then that is a positive thing.”
