Georgia Harrison on her fight against revenge porn: “I hope he has a good life” |  Ents & Arts News

Georgia Harrison is elegantly dressed, wearing a pink boucle jacket and a white blouse buttoned at the collar, with her hair swept back from her face in a sleek, elegant ponytail. But once she’s over the Zoom call, she’ll be donning a Tinkerbell costume for the early Halloween festivities – as seen in photos now shared on Instagram.

This is the fun, carefree woman the reality star and influencer used to be before her ex Stephen Bearalmost ruined her life.

It’s been seven months as he was jailed for sharing CCTV footage of them having sextaken without her knowing, and it finally feels like the fog has lifted… I’m falling in love with the magic of life again.”

Harrison, 28, is a former The only way is through Essex And Love Island Star. Today, she is a well-known activist following her high-profile ordeal, which she details in her new memoir, Taking Back My Power.

It started in August 2020 after she slept with Bear. Although he told her about the footage afterwards and assured her it would remain confidential, doubts remained. She heard stories about people seeing it and then received screenshots.

This was the hardest time of her life, she says, as she waited in limbo for the inevitable. The footage actually went viral, first on Bear’s OnlyFans account and then on Pornhub, she writes in her book. When that moment came, she says, she was almost relieved.

“I’ve been living in fear and imagining these situations… all these people are going to judge me, my friends and family are going to be so disappointed,” she explained.

“I think when it actually went viral and everyone knew about it, it was almost like a weight shift – being able to have the conversations with my friends and family… and then also with the police and people who could actually help me.”

“I think I really had to have those conversations to understand that I had nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I had no choice but to go to the police”

Harrison’s influential career collapsed as brands she worked with quickly dropped her.

It’s hard to overstate the shame, embarrassment and fear she felt, she says, given how many people viewed the footage or searched for the “sex tape.”

But she never hesitated to go to the police or do everything in her power to put an end to it.

She even asked her Instagram followers to help her collect evidence and publicly waived her right to anonymity as a victim of a sexual crime.

“When I realized how many porn websites it was on and that he had sold it himself directly from a verified account, I thought: There’s absolutely no other way to just go to the police and face it . “frontally,” she said.

During Bear’s trial in 2022, he posted on his Twitter account a half-price offer for his adult entertainment website as well as a photo of him arriving at court accompanied by his girlfriend.

The image showed him walking to the courthouse from a rented, chauffeur-driven white Rolls Royce, with accompanying text: “50% off my adult website for the next 24 hours. Come see why I’m trending.”

Stephen Bear takes a selfie and sings before going to prison

“It was really demoralizing”

Harrison describes his behavior as “appalling.” But it showed the real Stephen Bear, she adds.

“He was arrogant, he was rude, he was dismissive,” she says. “He treated women outside [the court], especially the reporters, as if they were completely insignificant. And that’s him. So it was more nice for the public to be able to see in reality what I was dealing with.”

She had to relive her ordeal in court and review photos of the footage shown to the jury.

“You feel really exposed when you have to look at picture after picture in different sexual positions that you never thought anyone would ever see you in,” she says.

“It was really, really hard. And it wasn’t just hard for me. I was embarrassed, but I could tell the whole room was embarrassed, and the jury must have felt very uncomfortable too.”

“But I knew I had to do it. So it was just like I bit the bullet and pushed through. That was really demoralizing.”

Bear, now 33, was found guilty of two counts of voyeurism and disclosing private, sexual photos and films. In March this year he was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

It was an extremely significant belief. According to data compiled by women’s charity Refuge earlier this year, of 13,860 intimate image offenses recorded by 24 police forces between January 1, 2019 and July 31, 2022, the alleged perpetrators were charged in just 4% of cases or summoned. A conviction is even less likely.

Changes in the law

After the campaign by Harrison and others, the government took office in June announced changes to make it easier to convict those who share revenge porn.

Although the law was criminalized in 2015, the new changes remove the requirement for prosecutors to prove perpetrators intended to cause disruption in order to secure a conviction.

“I still have a hard time understanding that this actually happened,” she says. “I think it will change conviction rates. I really hope that in a year I will be having these discussions and have statistics that show it made a difference.”

She added: “Because the girls that I speak to, the victims that I have spoken to in the past, this clause has really failed them so many times.”

Harrison now wants online platforms to face tougher consequences for hosting images or footage taken or shared without consent.

She says: “One of the most traumatic things was not even coming to terms with the fact that he did this to me. It was coming to terms with the fact that these powerful platforms make billions of dollars a year and are in such a big position where they have the responsibility to take care of their subscribers or viewers, they were easy so ignorant.

“None of them would answer me,” Harrison says. She received automated responses like “We will get back to you in five to six days.”

An OnlyFans spokesperson said the site removed the video “within 24 hours of notification, closed the account and assisted in the prosecution of Stephen Bear.”

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“That’s not asking much.”

Harrison doesn’t have much faith in tech companies, but he believes in the Online Safety Act, which will impose new obligations on social media platforms to protect users from harmful content.

For the biggest platforms, failure to protect users could result in significant fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue – potentially billions of pounds – and in extreme cases, tech bosses could even face jail time.

“I think once that comes into play, they’re going to put more money into compliance,” Harrison says.

She wants social media companies to have employees who can handle complaints about any form of abuse online.

She explains: “You should be able to speak to a human who can immediately take the appropriate steps to either pause or stop content pending further review. That’s not asking much.”

Harrison’s life is now completely different from the one she imagined as a reality star and influencer. Before all this, she collaborated with several underwear brands, but not now.

“I find it strange that there is such a stigma in this industry,” she says. “I definitely think that many brands should look at the way they treat women in these situations and also do more to empower women, especially if that is their main customer. That’s a bit hypocritical.”

But on the other hand, she says she’s “really happy to be opening new doors.” Earlier this month, she received Glamor magazine’s Activist of the Year award. She visited Downing Street last month.

“I think when you go through so much in such a short period of time, it takes a while to get used to being happy again and not being afraid that something could go wrong,” she says.

Picture:
Georgia Harrison poses for photographers upon her arrival at the Glamor Women of the Year Awards 2023 on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 in London. (Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP)

What would Harrison say to Bear?

Harrison has her book out and film projects in the pipeline. “I have a few things that will show my resilient side, which I think Britain has never seen before,” she says.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” I say. If there’s one word to sum up Georgia Harrison over the last few years, it’s probably resilient.

She smiles. “You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of,” she tells everyone else who suffers like she does.

I ask her what she would say to Bear if she ever met him again.

“Nothing,” is the quick answer. All she wants is for him to admit, not necessarily publicly, that he was wrong and “take steps to rehabilitate himself as a better person and learn to respect women, treat women well and not against them either.” “to break the law in the future”.

Harrison finds her way: “I believe that every person who has lost their way in this world should have a chance for rehabilitation, improvement and learning from their mistakes. I just don’t think everyone is capable of it.” But hopefully he will succeed and continue to live a good life – but a moral life.”

Harrison is proud of all she has accomplished and determined to continue to be a voice for others who may have suffered similar injustices, but says she must continue to be the Georgia Harrison of old.

“I’m pretty optimistic and humorous, I’m a carefree person and I feel like those aspects of my personality get a little lost,” she says.

“I’m campaigning or talking about things that are really important, but also quite mentally demanding and quite tiring. So I’m just trying to find a balance.”

She wants to help other people, she says again. “And other than that, I try to make sure there’s sunshine and rainbows.” She grins and tells me that she can’t wait to get into her costume for her Halloween party.

Tinkerbell – the fairy who fixes things.

Taking Back My Power, published by Renegade Books, also available in eBook and audio, is available now.