Pregnant Hilary Duff confronts photographer who’s been ruthlessly stalking her
Hilary Duff is nine-months-pregnant with her second child which means she’s a meal ticket for some unscrupulous paparazzo. Apparently. Sigh. This past weekend, she fought back.
“You’re hunting me down”
Frustrated and upset, she filmed the dude who had been following her all weekend and gave him a piece of her mind. She later uploaded the vision to her Instagram account to further shame the creep – and as a bit of a cry for help.
“I’m nine months pregnant, I have the flu,” she says to the man in the video. “Can you please stop taking my picture? You’re, like, hunting me down.”
“I lost my whole morning, and I didn’t get no photos,” the man responds.
“That’s not my fault! Please leave me alone. It’s the weekend, sir, please,” Hilary pleads.
Hilary later explained on Instagram that this guy had been tailing her for hours – and that this sort of behaviour is something she deals with every day.
“This guy has been at my sons soccer game this morning then followed me to my sisters house and was basically parked in her drive way to get photos. Followed me to run errands,” she wrote on Instagram.
“I politely asked him to let me be and he continues to follow and stalk me down like pray for hours now. This is not ok. I am 9 months pregnant. When people say that’s what you get for signing up to be a celebrity it honestly makes me sick. This is every day of every month and it’s simply not ok. If a non “celeb”(I’m sorry to use that word) was dealing with this the law would be involved.”
And she’s right.
Read more about Hilary Duff:
- Hilary Duff is pregnant – and has been hiding her baby bump for weeks!
- Hilary Duff hits out at body-shamers: “My body has given me the greatest gift”
- Hilary Duff kissed her son on the lips and some sad people got angry
“Part of the gig”
Predictably her distress then signalled the usual trope in her comments section, about this being the price of fame and yada, yada, yada …
“I understand where she is coming from but at the same time she is a celebrity and knows well that this act is part of the gig” pretty much sums it up.
But is it part of the gig? Why does being a public figure condemn a person to a life of having their every private move recorded for the profit of photographers – who almost exclusively stalk and photograph women – and media outlets?
Who cares? We do.
The view that the feelings of these women don’t matter, and this is all part of celebrity life is typical of the way high profile women are treated by the media and many of the public in general.
Piling on and criticising – even when someone has endured something terrible or is in obvious distress – seems to be more and more acceptable.
Humanity and compassion goes out the window and indeed often the more under pressure a famous woman is, the more she’s diminished by nasty commentary. For instance …
Serena Williams legitimately nearly dies having her baby and goes on to perform at an elite level? Whatever. She’s just a racket-smashing brat. (She’s not.)
Lily Allen spends over 20 hours delivering her stillborn baby and goes on to have some PTSD-related challenges? * shrugs * She’s just a drug-fancying scrag. (She’s not.)
Kim Kardashian fears for her life as she’s robbed by a gang in her Paris hotel room? Meh. She’s just a no-talent attention-seeker and probably deserved it. (She’s not and she didn’t.)
You have to ask yourself when it became totally okay – and even entertaining – to dehumanise famous women and shrug off their distress/dissect their lives, just because they have a public profile.
It’s not okay with us.
