Reality star Georgia Harrison has told MPs how the leaking of a video of herself having sex with Stephen Bear – filmed without her consent – spread like a “house fire”.
Former Celebrity Big Brother winner Bear left prison in January, having served 10-and-a-half months of his 21-month sentence for sharing a film of him having sex with Harrison on his OnlyFans site.
Harrison told MPs on the Women And Equalities Committee the video – recorded without her knowledge – “went viral to a point I can’t explain” as it spread round multiple sites and was circulated on WhatsApp.
She added: “It absolutely horrified me that an individual had done this to me but what most horrified me was that these platforms were hosting these videos that were unconsented.
“For many that I tried to reach out to I got an automated response saying we will get back to you within four to six days.
“When something like this is happening it really is like a house fire and the quicker you can put it out, the quicker you can stop it.
“Unfortunately, in four to six days your house has burnt down, everyone knows about this video – your family, your workplace, your peers, it’s too late.”
Image: Stephen Bear outside court in March. Pic: PA
Discussing her ordeal, Harrison added: “I feel like one of the biggest challenges in general is these big social media companies who are hosting pornographic images and videos, they don’t have any way of us getting through to them to report it when there is something unconsented there.
“It shouldn’t be robots that you get through to when it’s this important a situation, it shouldn’t be that hard to get through to someone.
“I’m not saying delete it, I’m not saying take this person’s account down, I’m just saying can we pause it and then review it in a few weeks and I think that is the biggest issue we are dealing with at the moment.”
Harrison added: “But I think if something gets to the level where you say this is me in a sexually explicit act and I have not given permission, it should be paused that day, not in four to six days.”
‘I ended up being physically ill’
On discovering the video was online, she said: “For the first few days, I was really just going through waves of complete sorrow and shock.
“It got to the point where I was so emotionally affected by what happened to me that I ended up being physically ill as well to the point where I was in hospital for five days over Christmas a little bit after the incident because the stress took such an effect on my body.
“I ended up having a cyst burst and I got an infection and literally it was just like my body deteriorated with my emotions.”
Harrison said the footage should be made illegal – and admitted it had given her “a lot of fear” over starting a family.
She said: “I know whenever I’m dating, meeting new people going into any sort of a new work opportunity, I am known as the person who has this sex tape which I never ever filmed and never consented to be out there.
“So it changed a lot for me and it definitely gives me a lot of fear for one day, if I do have a family, which is something that was always my intention, are my children going to be able to stumble across this footage?”
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.