Jennifer Aniston Sues Over Nude Photos
May 17, 2002 -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Naomi Campbell and Halle Berry have all gone to court, looking for a little bit of privacy.
Now America's sweetheart and Friends star Jennifer Aniston is waging a legal battle about her right to be away from the public eye.
Aniston, who plays Rachel on Friends — and also happens to be Mrs. Brad Pitt — is suing two British magazines for publishing paparazzi pictures taken over her fence while she was sunbathing topless in her back yard.
She filed the lawsuit two years ago against the publishers of High Society and Celebrity Skin magazines after the nude photos appeared alongside the headlines "Friends Star X-Posed Rachel, Monica and Phoebe Get Naked!" and "Rachel Gets Raunchy!" The photos were allegedly taken by a "stalkerazzi" photographer who scaled a neighbor's fence, the suit claims.
The lawsuit claims that the magazines violated her right to privacy. Aniston is seeking unspecified damages and wants a judge to order the publisher to stop distributing the pictures. The case will be heard in July.
Controlling Her Image
"Here we are talking not only about criminal, but civil liability," Julie Hilden, a New York attorney and legal analyst, told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "Jennifer Aniston has not only a claim for invasion of her right of privacy, she also has a claim for invasion of what's called the right of publicity. Which is the right to control her image, and to control the instances in which her image is used to sell a commercial product."
The magazine's defense centers on the idea that the 33-year-old mega-star isn't so innocent. With provocative poses on magazine covers and advertisements, the publishers challenge Aniston's claims that the pictures caused "shame, hurt, embarrassment and distress."
Hilden does not think that the defense tactic will work.
"Even if they do show that she posed close to fully nude in the photos that she did, I don't think it will make a lot of difference in the case," Hilden said. "Although, it could undermine her position with the judge, and her credibility, because her complaint says that she hasn't before."
Will Scanty Photos Cost Trial?
But , a Los Angeles judge has put Aniston in an awkward spot — telling her to produce any and all published pictures, in print or film, in which she has appeared "partially nude," to see how revealing they actually are. She has also been ordered to produce Friends and movie contracts to see if she has ever demanded a "no nudity" clause.
Anita Allen, a Yale University law professor who specializes in privacy and ethics, said that the defense could chip away at Aniston's claim to privacy.
"If they can show she was frequently scantily clad in public, and many shots of her like this have been published, the claim is less strong that the photos in question invaded her privacy," she said.
But Allen believes the defense will have a tough time of it. Aniston's lawyers will argue that there is a big difference between those magazine shoots, and the photograph taken of the actress when she was behind an 8-foot-high fence with foliage on it. Being in your own back yard is different than standing on a street corner, or in a studio for a photo shoot, Allen said. In addition, Aniston is not an actress who frequently appears half-nude.
"If the defense argues there are a lot of topless pictures of Aniston out there, it's simply not true," Allen said. The argument that the photos were newsworthy would fall short, too, because she was in her secluded back yard, not on TV, when the shots were taken.
The case really goes to the heart of privacy and whether the celebrity or the press gets to draw the line.
British supermodel Naomi Campbell just won a similar case in Britain. She argued that although she is a public figure, the press had no right to run a photo of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting last year. A London court agreed.
Pitt, Aniston's husband, sued Playgirl after it published nude photos of him and ex-fiancée Gwyneth Paltrow. Playgirl was ordered to recall the issue.