Whitney Cummings Posted a Photo of her Breast in Response to

May 18, 2024

Comedian and actress Whitney Cummings is speaking out against an attempted extortionist.

She posted a photo of her breast on social media on Monday, saying she had received threatening messages by someone looking for money in exchange for keeping the photo off the internet. “If anyone is gonna make money or likes off my nipple, it’s gonna be me,” she said in a tweet.

Cummings explained that she had accidentally posted the photo to an Instagram story in April and immediately removed it once she realized the photo revealed her nipple. Apparently the photo was screenshotted and sent to Cummings recently, along with the extortion note reading, “How much would it cost not to sell this photo?” according to screenshots she posted.

The 2 Broke Girls creator took matters into her own hands by posting the photo herself, along with several tweets. “When a woman in the public eye is extorted, we have to spend time, money and energy dealing with it, hiring lawyers and security experts, and living with a pit in our stomach about when and how we will be humiliated. Y’all can have my nipple, but not my time or money anymore,” she said.

In a show of support, Cummings’ followers on social media, including comedians Chris D’Elia and Bert Kreischer, posted embarrassing photos of themselves and tweets with the hashtag #istandwithwhitney. In 2014, there was a massive leak of nude photos of Hollywood stars, with 600 victims including Jennifer Lawrence, Gabrielle Union and Kate Upton. In 2017, Lawrence told The Hollywood Reporter she was still processing the nightmare: “It was so unbelievably violating. I feel like I got gangbanged by the fucking planet — like, there’s not one person in the world that is not capable of seeing these intimate photos of me.”

THR has reached out to Cummings’ rep for comment.

When a woman in the public eye is extorted, we have to spend time, money and energy dealing with it, hiring lawyers and security experts, and living with a pit in our stomach about when and how we will be humiliated. Y’all can have my nipple, but not my time or money anymore.

— Whitney Cummings (@WhitneyCummings) August 12, 2019

I’m not posting the names of the people trying to extort me because some of them might be dumb kids. I wouldn’t want the stupid ideas I had when I was a teenager to follow me around forever or else every time someone Googled me, they’d see me shoplifting a NO FEAR t-shirt. .

— Whitney Cummings (@WhitneyCummings) August 12, 2019

Now I’m getting threatened with “we have access to your iCloud.” I’ll be honest, I stand by most of my nudes. Frankly I’m way more embarrassed by all the inspirational quotes I’ve screen grabbed.

— Whitney Cummings (@WhitneyCummings) August 12, 2019

Related Stories