Tiger Woods has threatened to sue a celebrity smut site and the as-yet-unidentified person who stole and leaked nude photos of ex-girlfriend Lindsey Vonn and a full-frontal image of the pro golfer.
Looks as if that threat is not yet getting the job done.
As of 9:30 a.m. PDT Tuesday, photos and a video of Vonn, the photo of Woods and dozens of shots of additional victims — Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Katharine McPhee and Stella Maxwell — remained live on a website that was cited by TMZ in its Monday report of the breach and the legal threat.
Olympic medalist Vonn's phone was the one that was compromised, not Tiger's, said TMZ, which also reported McPhee had sent a similar legal threat to the website, which features hardcore sex ads supporting its naked celebrity images.
“It is an outrageous and despicable invasion of privacy for anyone to steal and illegally publish private intimate photos," a representative for Vonn told the Big Lead. "Lindsey will take all necessary and appropriate legal action to protect and enforce her rights and interests."
The most notorious celebrity-photo compromise so far has been referred to as "Celebgate," where Jennifer Lawrence was among the victims, along with Kaley Cuoco, Amber Heard and others. While incidents like this are commonly called "hacking," Celebgate and others have turned out to be phishing operations, where victims are tricked into giving up usernames, passwords and other personal information via fraudulent emails.
In that case, Google itself was threatened with a $100-million lawsuit if it didn't purge the pics from its search results.
A Pennsylvania man was convicted and sentenced in 2016 to 18 months in prison for stealing the pictures that prompted the FBI's Celebgate investigation.
The photos of Vonn and Woods were reportedly taken several years ago, when the two were a couple. They dated for nearly three years before she announced their breakup in May 2015.
