Azealia Banks has come under fire for tweeting explict photographs of Conor McGregor, which she alleges he sent to her without her consent.
"Don't be a rat cos all rats get caught," the MMA fighter appears to have said after allegedly sending her explict photos (neither the images or DMs are confirmed to have been sent by McGregor, and the original tweet has since been deleted).
Banks wrote back to McGregor, describing the messages as sexual harassment. "N***a do you know who the fuck I am? This is HARAM,” she said. “Like how are you really going to sexually harass me with the potato farmer d**k then threaten me not to tell????”
However, Banks later tweeted that she’d sent McGregor unsolicited nudes too. "No me and Conor McGregor have been sending each other unsolicited nudes since 2016," she wrote.
McGregor has been engaged to Dee Devlin since 2020. Last year, he was found liable after he was accused of sexual assault in a civil case. He’s currently facing another civil lawsuit for sexual battery.
In the UK, 76 per cent of girls aged 12 and 18 had received an unsolicited nude image of boys or men in 2020, alongside four in ten 18 to 34-year-old women.
Is sending unsolicited nudes illegal? And is it illegal to share them without consent?
Are unsolicited nudes illegal?
Taking and sharing naked images and videos privately between consenting adults is legal in the UK. But since October 2023, ‘cyber-flashing,’ which consists of sending an unwanted sexual image to a victim, is regarded as a crime.
Under the Online Safety Act, it’s illegal to send unsolicited naked images, videos and deepfakes to someone without their consent.
A few months after the act was passed, the first cyber-flashing conviction occured. In March 2024, a man was jailed for sending non-consensual images of his genitals to a woman and a teenage girl.
If you receive a nude, is it illegal to show someone?
Unless someone has explicitly said otherwise, intimate photos are considered private. Showing intimate images or videos of another person without their consent is illegal.
“Intimate” content includes genitals, buttocks, or breasts (exposed or covered only by underwear), or features someone doing or present during a sexual act.
There’s a defense to the crime if the person in the images or videos has explicitly consented to it being shared, or if they chose to put themselves in an intimate situation in public, such as a naked protest.
In the UK, it’s also a criminal offense to create or share explicit images of someone under the age of 18, including when the image is generated by AI.
Even if someone is under the age of 18 themselves, they may be committing a criminal offense if they exchange sexual imagery with a peer under the age of 18.
The only exception to the law is when 16 or 17-year-olds take intimate photos with a partner and they're not shared with anyone else.
If the private sexual images or videos are shared with the intent to humiliate or harass the victim, this may be classified as “revenge porn”.
Perpetrators of revenge porn can face up to two years in prison, under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015.
