“Completely naked?” Dawn Hudson asked, her eyes bulged, as Jennifer Todd nearly choked on her cappuccino. It was as if my preamble had done nothing to prepare these ladies for what I was actually telling them.
I took another sip of my mimosa. I wished it was a little stronger.
Oh hell. A lot stronger.
I’d joined Dawn and Jennifer Todd for brunch at a little spot overlooking West Hollywood. Many private meetings between famous people took place in the upstairs patio which could be reserved for special occasions or just whenever the rich and famous wanted to dine without being spotted.
Even so, I’d worn sunglasses to hide myself, which oddly went against the crazy idea I was now pitching to two of the most successful business women in all of entertainment.
Jennifer Todd was the President of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s production company and was producing next week’s Oscar’s show for ABC.
Dawn Hudson was the CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, having produced The Spirit Awards and L.A. Film Festival during her illustrious career.
Hearing the 60-year-old Dawn say ‘naked’ out loud added to my building anxiety as I looked around to make sure the waiter bringing our raisin bread and berries couldn’t hear. It made no sense, wanting to be naked in the most public of public places all the while feeling awkward and embarrassed about having a conversation about being naked.
But as I had learned two nights before out in Staten Island when I bared it all for strangers, the embarrassment I felt was coupled with even stronger excitement. And it was the excitement that I craved above all else.
Meeting with Dawn and Jennifer Todd to discuss the possibility of me showing up “completely naked” for the shows red carpet event was supposed to be an escalation of my compulsion. But deep down, I knew it would simply put a cap on the whole thing. See, while I was having the time of my life fantasizing, and even temporarily convincing myself that I was actually going to do it, the logical part of my brain eventually came around to remind me that what I wanted to do simply wasn’t possible.
So why was I in West Hollywood, meeting with executives, trying to convince them to let me? Because then, when they inevitably turned me down, I could direct my frustration at the powers that be instead of internalizing desires I couldn’t explore and chastising myself for own reluctance.
I wasn’t willing to show up naked without prior authorization from the Academy and Producers of the show, if only because my fantasy of being naked in public didn’t involve also being arrested and booked for public indecency. There was only one way for this to happen, one narrow opening, one door that only these two women had the key to. Knowing this was comforting, because it allowed me to shed the pressure and put the opportunity in someone’s hands other than my own.
I’d made a deal with Darren – but more importantly, myself – that I would honestly and truly try my best to get Dawn and Jennifer Todd to give me the okay to flaunt my naked body all over their prestigious skarlet carpet. I’d put my desires out in the air publicly to the people that could make them a reality, and if and when they told me no, and only then, would I walk away from the idea.
I would be disappointed for sure, building up my hopes and fantasies only to be told no, but I could at least take some satisfaction from my attempt to be revolutionary and brave. Hollywood just wasn’t ready for the revolution.
Okay perhaps revolution was overstating it. I just wanted to be naked. But explaining why to them had kept me up all night. Just admitting the desire out loud was hard enough. Articulating the reasons why I wanted to and why they should let me was exponentially more daunting.
But I’d pushed past my reservations, called them for brunch, and showed up on an empty stomach, save the butterflies.
I didn’t immediately blurt out that I wanted to show up “completely naked” as soon as we were seated. Hell, I had to make sure I ordered a drink first. But after the small talk and hollow pleasantries, we’d finally arrived at the point of this meeting.
I could tell they thought this was going to be some kind of informal business meeting. Perhaps I’d ask them about starting my own production company and I wanted them to come on as board members or investors. That actually sounded like a good idea but for better or worse, I wasn’t here to pitch good ideas.
I’d asked them about this years dress code for the show. The Golden Globes had experienced a Black Out in response to the metoo movement, as most of the guests were asked to wear black. But Dawn expressed that they didn’t want to rerun that sentiment or turn their red carpet extravaganza into a funeral.
“We want everyone to be themselves,” Dawn had said before emphasizing. “Especially our women.”
I could have beat around the bush or prolonged the reason I was asking but the anxiety of thinking about it for so long had finally reached its boiling point. I just wanted to get it over with.
After taking that first sip of my drink, I finally laid my cards on the table. “What if, hypothetically, I showed up not wearing a gown?”
“There have been unwritten guidelines in the past that said women should wear gowns but not on my watch,” Dawn said. “You can certainly wear slacks if you’d like.”
“I think it would be pretty powerful if you showed up wearing pants,” Jennifer Todd added.
“No, I don’t mean that,” I said with a slight hesitation before clarifying my statement. “I’m asking, what if, I came…wearing nothing?”
The two women across from me looked at each other, nonplussed, before Dawn spoke up. “What do you mean nothing?”
“Nude.”
“Nude,” Dawn repeated out loud, still obviously fighting to comprehend.
“Like a transparent dress?” Jennifer Todd offered up as a possible explanation.
I wasn’t trying to be cryptic or equivocal. But they just weren’t getting it. I had to level with them. “No. I mean naked. No gown, no pants. No clothes. Just me. What if I showed up naked.”
And that was when we reached the “Completely naked?” shocked response from the CEO of the most prestigious award show in the world.
I nodded my head and bit my lip as they let out some nervous laughter. They seemed to think I was joking. “Why would you show up…naked?” Jennifer Todd asked.
“Because I want to make a statement,” I answered.
“A statement,” Jennifer Todd repeated, skeptical.
“And you have to be completely naked to make this statement?” Dawn asked.
“This particular statement, yes. It’s kind of central to my message.”
“Hold up, let’s reel this back because I’m still not sure I’m hearing what you are saying correctly,,” Jennifer Todd said, still clearly flustered. It looked as if she wanted to choose her words carefully so there would be zero confusion going forward. “You want to come to Sunday’s red carpet event. You want to make some kind of statement. And you want to do it completely naked.”
“Well, my nakedness would actually be the statement. I don’t want to get on a soap box and deliver a speech or anything.”
“What, so you show up wearing a robe and drop it to reveal that you’re naked? Something like that?” Jennifer Todd asked. I almost wanted to laugh even though I was starting to get frustrated that they weren’t getting it. I knew it would be a difficult task to explain why I wanted to be naked but this was even harder than I was expecting. We couldn’t even get past what I wanted to do, let alone why I wanted to do it.
I sat my glass on the table, shaking my head. “No, I literally mean just expressing myself by being naked on the carpet. Getting out of my limo naked and doing the red carpet as if everything is normal. No gimmicks. No strip tease. No rant or megaphone annoying ‘hey everyone I’m naked.’ I’m just talking about being naked. The red carpet is known for being the place where hundreds of reporters ask actresses what they are wearing. I think I’d be the first person to really just say I’m wearing my own skin and nothing more.”
“So you’re not talking about a quick flash or a one off interview? But spending the entire Pre-Show naked?” Dawn asked.
“I understand it’s a stretch,” I started to apologize, knowing how ridiculous my request must have sounded. How ridiculous I must have looked at that moment. But the ladies at my table didn’t want an apology, they wanted an explanation.
“Jennifer, what statement is so important to you that you feel it should be made naked before our Academy?” Dawn asked.
I felt judged as I opened my mouth to answer the pointed question. It was certainly reasonable for the leader of the Academy to ask but it felt hostile nonetheless. I’d had such a great relationship with both Dawn and Jennifer Todd, but at that moment, I felt as if I might have ruined it by opening my big mouth and exposing how perverted I was.
Now you’ve done it, idiot.
I could feel all of my insecurities trying to take control of me. Tell them you’re joking, say it was only hypothetical, claim it was an idea of a friend. Disarm them with your goofy personality. Distance yourself from this stupid fantasy while you still have the respect of this women.
I wanted to give in to my insecurities. It took everything, something small but powerful inside of me to shake them off. And at the center of that something was a voice I heard. It was Greta, who had inspired me two nights before by showing us the performance of a lifetime, where she bared body and soul to an audience, lived a moment she would always have to cherish, and triumphed over her own fears.
“No regrets,” she’d told me.
“No regrets,” I’d promised her.
No regrets is what that small voice inside me of whispered before I took a deep breath and confronted the questioning gaze of these two women that had agreed to take time out of their frantically busy schedule to meet with me.
It came out then, not just my words, but the emotions tied to them as well. I told them about my frustration with the sometimes oppressive glitz and glam of Hollywood Awards season. I told them about the pressure of making sure I could fit into a fashion icon’s latest creation, and the sobering fact that I was cheating on my diet by even dining with them. I was contractually obligated to have a thinner waist in the next five days, or I would forfeit more money than some people earned in thirty years.
I vented about the unrealistic expectations that the Industry placed on women’s bodies, images of perfection that they wanted at all times, for every role. Male stars were given a wide variety of roles with varied looks. I remembered how my co-star Christian Bale had gone on a diet of cheeseburgers and doughnuts for his role in American Hustle, where he gained 40 pounds.
But almost every role I received wanted me at an exact size, the desirable, more than “fuckable” image of perfection that they said was essential to my ability to pull a salary at my market value. I’d nearly starved myself to play a ballerina for my latest movie Red Sparrow, and ended up packing on the pounds directly after filming because I was so hungry. The depression that I felt while promoting the film Darren and I made together didn’t help matters.
And here I found myself, admitting these things to them. But it didn’t stop at eating disorders and unhealthy self image issues. I vented about the scrutiny and harassment we got for what we chose to wear or not wear.
Dawn immediately recognized what situation I was referencing. “You’re talking about that feminist reporter that shamed you for wearing that Gucci dress in the cold.”
Jennifer Todd passed the bowl of berries to me. “God what a cunt that woman was. Overreacting because you wanted to wear that amazing dress.”
I was glad they shared in my frustration but they needed to know my frustration wasn’t really at the reporter, or any one individual. “It’s more than that dress. It’s bigger than the reporter. It’s better than myself.”
I took a bite out of bread. “It’s about the pressure we get to fit into gowns we can’t wear. About the objectification of women’s bodies in the movie industry. About how every actress I know has been pressured into showing their boobs in a gratuitous scene. About tasteful nudity and censorship in the media. About how violence is glorified but our bodies are shamed. About how boobs in public are considered more dangerous and outrageous to civilized society than an idiot walking around a park with an AK47.”
With each reason I gave about what this statement would be for, I could see them slowly but surely coming to terms with the sincerity of my request. So I kept talking, kept listing off reasons for ‘why’. Some of the whys were simply a regurgitation of things Darren had said when he told me why he wanted me to do it. But I made sure to include my own personal reasons too, namely exercising agency so that I could “reclaim ownership of my body by choosing to be naked in an artistic statement, and diluting the power of people having access to my stolen nude photos.”
I didn’t mention the thrill I was chasing. I didn’t want what I desired to seem perverted, even if it was. But as I tried to get these confused women to see what would possess me to come to them with this idea, it hit me that there was merit to everything I was telling them. I wasn’t lying. There was a sizable part of me that needed to make this statement for an artistic purpose that had nothing to do with the titalization I craved.
Realizing I was being completely sincere with them honestly made me feel a lot better about what I was expressing. If this were to happen for real, and not just in my wildest dreams, I had to have enough self awareness that I would be sharing the red carpet with women that had been abused, women that had been harmed, women that were not there because they were chasing a thrill. This would be an important night, the first Oscar ceremony after Hollywood’s abuse became worldwide news. It would be completely selfish if the only reason I came naked was for a perverse sexual reaction. It had to be more than that.
And it was comforting to know as I passionately pleaded my case that it was more than that for me. There was no question about that, especially when I started to get emotional as I talked about my stolen photos.
I even found myself talking about the time Seth Macfarlane hosted the Oscars, five or six years ago. He had done a crude musical bit called “We saw your boobs,” where he named and shamed nearly twenty Hollywood A-list actresses that had filmed nude scenes in award winning movies.
The song and dance was meant to mock how Hollywood routinely required their most talented women to bare it all before they were recognized by the Academy for their acting. It was also a not so subtle hint to casting couches and the suggestion that all Hollywood actresses were sluts that used their body to get to the top, unlike their male counterparts.
We Saw Your Boobs
We Saw Your Boobs
In the movie that we saw, we saw your boobs
The Academy proudly boasted on their website that they upheld excellence in motion picture arts and inspired imagination. And here we were, on the grandest stage, apparently celebrating the excellence of boobs and how men didn’t have to imagine what the most talented actresses alive looked like naked. Hooray?
Meryl Streep, we saw your boobs in Silkwood
Naomi Watts’ in Mullholland Drive
Angelina Jolie, we saw your boobs in Gia
They made us feel excited and alive
Okay it’s not as if we were naive. We knew there were entire porn sites dedicated to collecting nude scenes from actresses. I knew several actresses that put ‘no nudity’ clauses in their contracts solely to avoid ending up on one of those trashy sites.
Others were open to nudity, but would only sign on if it involved a rape scene, because surely no sane person could watch those scenes and reduce them to the sight of boobs. But again, here we were, watching a choir full of men on stage sing about seeing Hilary Swank and Jodie Foster’s boobs, even though they were from rape scenes.
Jessica Chastain, we saw your boobs in Lawless
Jodie Foster in the Accused
Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry
Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky
Here we were, targeting some of the most talented and successful artists in our industry and making fun of them for commiting to roles that called for nudity.
And Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures and Jude
And Hamlet, and Titanic
And Iris and Little Children
And The Reader
And whatever you’re shooting right now
Seth literally pointed out woman after woman in front of him, letting them all know that he thought of their art as jerkoff material. Scarlett Johansson was one of the women that was ridiculed, and even though she was several seats away from me, the anger on her face was palpable.
Kristen Stewart, we saw your boobs in On the Road
And in Monster we saw Charlize Theron’s
Helen Hunt, we saw them in The Sessions
And Scarlett Johansson, we saw them on our phones
It wasn’t until commercial break when I saw Scarlett angrily marching past me that my friend Lindsey leaned over and whispered that Scarlett’s naked photos had been leaked previously from a phone hack. That explained why Seth had said he saw her boobs on his phone as opposed to her consensually showing them in a film.
I remembered watching Scarlett march for the exit doors, dragging her elegant Dolce and Gabbana dress, a look of complete revulsion on her face.
I couldn’t imagine the shame and humiliation she must have felt. Not only from the initial hack that led to her naked photos being leaked, but the fact that a host and choir had openly admitted to millions of people that they had viewed stolen naked photos of her. Being victimized twice, so publicly, all for a laugh.
Scarlett eventually came back to her seat but I never saw her smile for the rest of the night. She had tough skin, we all had to given the demanding and often cut throat nature of our industry. But it was clear to me, even then, that there was a wound there. And the song had been a painful reminder that it still hurt.
But Scarlett wasn’t the only woman that I sensed a change of energy from. The lighthearted and playful mood of my section had dissolved into something else. Not quite hostile, not quite dead.
People were still clapping, and smiling. Women often had to hide their true emotions and go along with the flow, especially during parties and events, which this was. But I still sensed it.
Many of the women were guarded for the rest of the night. Afraid to let their guard down and relax. Disarmed by what the Academy had allowed to happen to them and their colleagues.
That kind of stunt would have been expected at the MTV Awards, or maybe even at a Comedy Central Roast.
But this was our exclusive, supposedly liberal and progressive club. This was the most prestigious stage, a platform to honor the craft of film-making and show reverence to the men and women that brought words on a page to life. The last place any woman in Hollywood should have expected to have their boobs turned into an embarrassing joke was here. But again, here we were.
And I was furious.
How dare they? Who did these men think they were? How could the Academy stoop so low? Would they ever allow a “we saw your cock?” song on the ABC airwaves? Of course not. This was inappropriate, disgusting, appalling.
And the Academy deserved to get a piece of my mind for giving a platform to such misogyny.
Only one problem.
I was in on it. I was in on the whole damn thing.
See, this was back in 2013. This was before I’d had my own nude pictures stolen and leaked to millions of people. This was before I’d started speaking out on social and feminist issues. This was before I had even won my first Oscar. That wouldn’t happen until several hours after the song.
I hadn’t become the outspoken, say-it- how-I mean-it, stick-up-for-women – Jennifer Lawrence yet. I was still that girl that wanted to be liked, didn’t want to ruffle any feathers, and never wanted to come off as a killjoy.
I was deathly afraid of ever being seen as overly sensitive, humorless, and unable to take a joke. I was raised with older brothers. Foul mouthed, rough, disgusting brothers. The kind of brothers that drew cocks on my Avril Lavigne and Sum 41 posters when I was in middle school. But I didn’t cry about it. I responded by drawing mustaches and cocks on the girls in their stash of hidden girly magazines.
When they stuck horse shit wrapped in plastic in my school lunch box and passed it off as brownies that I nearly ate in front of everyone, I got even a few weeks later by giving both of them stinky hitlers as they napped before their big dates.
I was all about being an equal participant in the big joke.
I watched raunchy comedies, cursed like a sailor, and become ‘one of the boys’ whenever I was ever around boys. I couldn’t count how many times a guy had told me that I wasn’t like those other girls that took themselves so seriously. They always meant it as a compliment, and I usually always accepted it as such.
Over the years, I grew from a girl that acted like a boy into a woman that thought like a man, which I would later realize sometimes led to me judging other women for being too delicate. The way I saw it, if you laughed at your own misfortune then misfortune could never hurt you. If you chose not to be offended then an offense was harmless.
If a guy said something sexist to you, then say something sexist (and more clever) back at him. Then laugh about it. If someone wanted to offend you, disappoint them by not being offended. Don’t give them the satisfaction of being hurt or bothered or humiliated.
So imagine my delight when I got a call from Seth McFarland and his team a few nights before that Oscars event, and they told me about opening number they had. They explained the setup of the joke and played the portion of the song that would mention me.
Anne Hathaway, we saw your boobs in Brokeback Mountain
Halle Berry, we saw them in Monster’s Ball
Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut
Marisa Tomei in the Wrestler, but
We haven’t seen Jennifer Lawrence’s boobs at all
I responded to the whole thing by laughing hysterically. Of course I laughed. Laughing at raunchy comedy made me a cool chick. I was one of the guys, easy to get along with, and would never get offended at a harmless joke. And that’s all this was. Harmless, victimless fun.
Seth also revealed that Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts had already agreed to have pre-recorded looks of mortification inserted into the broadcast when he mentioned seeing their boobs on screen. Hearing that other noteworthy actresses were okay with the song made it easier for me to agree to let them splice in pre-recorded footage of me reacting in a fun way when they mentioned that they had never seen my boobs.
As our conversation flowed it was clear that Seth and his team had come to me because I was seen as the quirky, fun loving, down to earth It-girl of Hollywood. And since I valued that perception of me at the time, I didn’t want to disappoint them.
If they wanted to feature me in the opening number that would surely be one of the most memorable moments of the show, then of course I was going to say yes.
“You’re awesome,” Seth had told me when I gave his crude song and dance my blessing.
“It should be really funny,” I had told him.
“Hopefully. We just hope everyone has as good of a sense of humor about it as you,” he said.
Once again, a man complimenting me for not being like those other, humorless, feminazis. And pitifully, I enjoyed that feeling just as much as a 22-year-old Hollywood star up for an Oscar as I did as a middle schooler playing football in the backyard with the boys. “If they get mad, fuck them.”
I carried that mindset into the Dolby theater the night Seth McFarland opened the show with the “We Saw Your Boobs” segment. And even as I saw how angry and offended many of the women in my section were, I found myself judging them for being such snowflakes.
The song is harmless.
It’s meant to be funny, not mean.
It’s clever satire actually, he’s actually making fun of men, not women.
I justified it enough in my head to dismiss the upset faces around me so I could get back to enjoying the show and settling my nerves – I was up for an Oscar after all. That mattered a hell of a lot more than outrage over a silly song.
I won my first and only Oscar for Best Actress a few hours later. I fell on my way to accept the award which became the talk of the night as we made our way to the after parties. Well, it was one of the talks.
“Some people are upset,” my friend Lindsey stated to me at the Vanity Fair After Party, after she returned from a trip to the ladies room. “About your participation in the song.”
I remember that my immediate reaction was indignation. “Who are these people that are upset?” I’d asked her. As she listed the names of some of the most talented and respected women in Hollywood, I felt my blood boil. But when she got to Scarlett Johansson I felt my heart drop. Still, I had only laughed in response. “Jesus Christ. All because I agreed to make a silly happy face because no one has seen my boobs?”
My brothers were the first to defend me. I was their little sister of course and this was supposed to be one of the crowning achievements of my life. They weren’t about to let anyone ruin it.
“This is just petty Hollywood politics,” my oldest brother Ben said to assure me I wasn’t in the wrong. “You win the Oscar and suddenly people are bad mouthing you behind your back.”
“Fucking jealous bitches,” my other brother Blaine said in agreeance. “They chose to show their tits to the world. Nobody made them. And I’m sure they got paid millions for it. So why get all uptight about it because someone points it out?
My mother chimed in, not quite going as far as my brothers were, but still enough to let me know she thought the whole thing was ridiculous. “People really need to learn how to take a joke. I’m a woman and I laughed, it was a funny song. And they were going to perform it with or without that pre-recorded footage of you.”
Ben had followed that up by saying, “Plus it’s the Family Guy – guy. He’s known for crude, offensive humor. What did they expect?”
But it was my father’s comment that would stay with me for years. “I’m really proud of you Jen,” he told me as he held my Golden Statue in his hands, reading the engraving of my name before finding my eyes. “You didn’t have to take off your clothes or film some gratuitous sex scene to win this thing. I think anyone upset with you is just upset that they can’t say the same.”
I honestly couldn’t believe it. My father was the biggest film buff of us all. He was the one that got me into watching classic films. And even he was subtly suggesting that bearing skin on film was something to be ashamed about. Was he even implying that he would have been less proud of me had I taken off my clothes in a scene that won me this award?
But before I could ask, Blaine gave me a slap on the shoulder. “You kept it all about the talent sis, and you were rewarded for talent. No politics, no bullshit, no oscar bait. People went to see Monsters Ball to see Halle Berry get pounded. People go to your movies because you’re good in them. Haters gonna hate.”
They were clearly trying to tell me that they were proud of my hard work I put into acting after I struggled so much when I first moved away from Kentucky to pursue my acting career. But despite their good intentions, my mind was translating their sentiment to “Thanks for being sweet and pure and not a slut like these other Hollywood skanks.”
It was as if they were thanking me for being virginal because anything other than that would have been an embarrassment to them as fathers and brothers. That entire exchange triggered something in me. Revived a cognitive dissonance about my body that I thought had been just adolescent sexual frustration.
Most girls grew up being encouraged to believe, or outright told that our there was value in our purity. That modesty was a virtue and to be a woman of worth meant maintaining your virtue, at least publicly. Essentially, being a slut made your worthless, so know your worth and don’t be a slut. Because of this, much of our self esteem came from this value placed on us by society for not being slutty. It was reinforced by our fathers, and brothers, and even our mothers, sisters, and friends.
So on some level, I felt good about being told that not showing my boobs in a movie was a good thing. I felt more valuable. More valuable than the sluts of Hollywood that had devalued themselves by filming scenes that were essentially softcore porn disguised as artful storytelling. And I was better than that.
At that moment in my life, I was on a list of beautiful women that the public were dying to see nude. Women like Emma Watson, Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Anna Kendrick. Good girls, clean women. Virginal on screen talent that bucked the trend of needing to bare it all to thrive in this industry. Women that left their naked bodies up to the imagination. Women that knew their worth and maintained their virtue.
My name was on the list with them and that made me feel good. But on a more complicated level, it also made me feel like an impostor because deep down, I secretly and somewhat begrudgingly desired to join my sisters on the other side of the male-created line that separated the madonnas from the whores.
There was something seductive about the fact that the line even existed at all. Even good girls of Hollywood played with the line. They might tease a leg over the line for a racy magazine photo shoot, or tap dance around it by doing implied nudity in a film that might use a body double for the actual full frontal. It was similar to virgins that tease their boyfriends and do everything but to retain their purity.
But whatever kept them on the ‘right’ side of the line felt like a weight on my shoulders that I wanted to remove. It was all about finding the right time and place for it. Comparisons to virginity again, wanting to be fucked but knowing you needed to wait for the right time and place to give yourself away.
I’d ‘given myself away’ sexually for the first time in the cheapest motel room my boyfriend could afford after I botched an audition and failed to land yet another role. I even later joked with my best friend Emma Stone that I would have rather lost my virginity to the casting director that turned me down for the role instead of a boyfriend I pushed away weeks later. At least I would have gotten a job out of it.
Jokes aside, I wanted to lose my ‘you can google me naked on the internet now’ virginity in a much more meaningful way. But to hear my family tell it, they were hoping I never crossed that line in my career. Ever. Or else I would end up like those other women. The sluts.
I felt really awkward later on during the after party when Scarlett Johansson came up to congratulate me on my win for Best Actress. Not just because I knew that she had been one of the women that expressed being upset by my participation in the “We Saw Your Boobs” segment, but because I’d sat idle and let my family basically slut shame all of the women the song poked fun at.
I introduced her to my family and friend Lindsey, she shook their hands and we shared a laugh about my stumble up the steps to accept the award, but behind the friendly banter I saw something else in her eyes, pity. Why did she pity me? I wasn’t the one that had been publicly shamed.
For the rest of the night, I felt distant from my peers. They came up to me, congratulated me, told me how great I was, but for the first time, I noticed that it didn’t feel real. Perhaps the love was never real, even dating back to my first Oscars appearance. But it felt more than that. It felt like I was being judged for being singled out as the actress that hadn’t shown her boobs. And then I’d laughed about it while everyone else looked pissed. It seemed as if everyone was judging me for this.
I bumped into Scarlett again after my family had gone back to their hotel and asked her directly if she was angry with me.
“Disappointed maybe, but not angry,” she answered, her guards down after a night of drinking. “I’m angry at the people that allowed it to take place. That wasn’t your fault.”
I remember trying to explain how Seth had contacted me about the song and how he had explained the joke of the song to me, namely how the song was mocking the men more than the women. She listened politely but eventually rejected the claim.
“It was about mocking women Jennifer. All of the women he named, you, all of us,” she said. “Look, you can be friends with those guys. You don’t have to be all girl power or anything. But don’t let them hide behind you as they demean us. That’s all I’m saying.”
I left the party shortly afterwards and decided against a second after party even though Lindsey was ready to keep the night going. I was spent emotionally. And the suggestion that I had been used by men to help demean women had sucked the fun out of me. I lay in bed that night restless until I pulled my phone off the nightstand so I could google “Scarlett Johansson naked leak.”
It was that easy. All it took was a thought and a second to return intimate photos of this woman’s boobs and ass. Photos that I, nor anyone else should have had access to. Photos that were likely being seen by millions of people that very night thanks to Seth reminding the world that they existed.
I ended up browsing through the naked photos of me on my phone, photos I would take to send to my boyfriend, or sometimes photos I took for no reason at all.
I thought about deleting the photos from my phone but something stopped me, and instead I deleted my internet history and rolled back over in bed. I felt ashamed of myself. But it wasn’t just because I had now violated her privacy after condoning a performance that made fun of the invasion of her privacy. No, the feeling I was most ashamed of was the nonsensical desire I had to know what a humiliation that deep felt like. I ended up masturbating to the shameful feelings. The explosive orgasm left me even more conflicted.
A year later, I guess I got my wish and then some.
Scarlett was one of the first women to call me after my own stolen nude photos flooded the internet. I shamefully declined to answer her phone call.
My mind played so many tricks on me in the weeks and months that followed my public exposure. Maybe what happened to me was cosmic justice?
And when the South Park episode aired and Cartman said photos of my butthole were public domain, and treated my public exposure as a big joke for all to laugh at, all I could think about was what my brother had said about Seth McFarland.
It’s the South Park guys. What did you expect?
It felt therapeutic telling Dawn and Jennifer Todd these thoughts and tying them to my crazy proposal. While I’d left some of the more embarrassing details to myself, I did let them know I was ashamed for being used by Seth to shield him from controversy. If anyone criticised him he could always point to me, Charlize, and Naomi and say “they were cool with it,” as if we spoke for women and gave out passes that allowed him to humiliate other women without repercussion. I hated that I had been that naive.
But I wasn’t the only one with regrets over that show.
“You know, lots of people wanted me to resign over that,” Dawn said, bringing ms thoughts current. “The board agreed to have Seth host and I wanted to give him the freedom to do what he does best. But I shouldn’t have signed off on that segment.”
Dawn explained that the backlash from that show helped to inform her current outlook on running the Academy. She wanted to be more inclusive of women, minorities, LGBT, push for progress, and be on the right side of history. But she also had to be mindful of dwindling ratings and lost sponsorship.
She had the task of making the Oscars culturally relevant, keeping the populist interested in rich people giving each other awards, while maintaining, and in some cases, rebuilding the luster and prestige that the Academy was known for. The Academy Awards used to be one of the few chances the average person got to see celebrities outside of movies. So almost everyone used to tune in to see who was wearing what and watch the movie stars mingle and look beautiful.
But we now live in the era of TMZ blogs dedicated to celebrities, and twitter and snapchat that connected millions directly to their favs. Getting those people to put down their phones and watch an awards show was a much more difficult goal and involved process for the CEO of the Academy than it was 20, even 10 years ago.
As Dawn broke down the challenges she faced, I noticed her looking at me with a curious, contemplative look on her face. Like how one might look at a screenplay that needs work but has potential. Was she starting to actually see me? Truly see me as I was and wanted to be? Completely naked, walking down her prestigious red carpet, the entire world tuned into her show? Was she seeing the record breaking ratings and renewed interest in award shows? Was she seeing my proposal as an idea she could actually work with?
Nah, I told myself as we continued the conversation. She was probably just trying to hide the fact that she thought I needed therapy, not a red carpet event to heal my wounds.
Jennifer Todd cut into my thoughts after silencing her phone. “What I find interesting is that a few years after Scarlett’s nude photo leak, she appeared completely naked in that artsy science film. Skin Deep or something…”
“Under the Skin,” Dawn said.
“Yes, that’s it,” Jennifer Todd nodded before looking at me. “Hearing you talk about how angry she was about having her naked body exposed against her will, only for her to turn around and give full frontal nudity in her next film – it really helps bring your feelings into sharper focus for me. Especially knowing you have a film coming up with full frontal. I guess that’s a natural response to having your nudity become publicly available without your consent. ”
I had to take another sip of my drink to keep from laughing out loud. They were reading me alright. One of the reasons I had taken the role for my upcoming film Red Sparrow was because it allowed me to play sexy and empowered even though I didn’t feel sexy or empowered. I wanted to feel those feelings again.
When I sat down with director Francis Lawrence, one of the directors I trusted most, and he described the full frontal nudity that the film would require, I felt the warm tingly feeling that wasn’t necessarily sexual, but was exciting. I’d been offered nude scenes before and always turned them down, despite conflicted feelings about whether I actually wanted to do them or not. But the way this one was described had gone past excitement and settled into my bones.
The script described a scene where Dominika, a Russian ballerina, was sent to a Russian spy school to learn sexpionage and was nearly raped from behind in the showers by a male student.
But Dominika was fiery, defiant, and fought back against her attacker, leaving his face bruised and bloodied. When the teacher found out, she didn’t chastise the male student. Instead she rebuked Dominka for resisting the lust of the student. As a show of submission to the state, the teacher brought her attacker with his bruised face and ego out in front of the entire class and instructed Dominka to “give him what he wants.”
What he wanted was for Dominka to turn around and bend over the table to be fucked like a dog in front of the entire class. But the woman in the script, a woman with traits I so desired to have, told her would-be-rapist no before unbuttoning her top and demanding that he look at her. When the male student looked away from her exposed breast, in embarrassment, or shame, or because he felt small, she barked “I said look at me.”
She unzipped her skirt, let them fall down her legs, rolled down her panties and stepped out of them completely naked in front of her teacher, her attacker, and a class full of her peers. She sat back on the table, opened her legs and told the man that wanted to violate her “Well? What are you waiting for? I’m ready. Are you going to fuck me or not?”
The first time I read the scene, my skin broke out in goosebumps. The fact that this naked woman felt powerful and large in the text while the clothed male felt small and powerless was compelling and fascinating to me. Even better, the scene ended with the man walking away after not being able to muster up the virile energy or fortitude to match her sexual performance. She was the only one naked in the room but that hadn’t diminished her. If anything it gave her control that she didn’t have before she was tasked with giving him what he wanted.
But he left without getting what he wanted. And she left empowered.
That was the scene that ultimately got me to sign on for the film. I wanted to become Dominika. Naked but not afraid. Vulnerable but not powerless. Exposed, with the possibility of being fucked, but with my agency intact. I wanted her sexual strength, her fiery defiance, her refusal to be intimidated by peering eyes, and demands that she submit and conform.
I wanted the words on the page to come to life with my voice and my body and my actions. If not through my real life, then at least within the confines of a film and movie set.
“Everyone already saw me,” I said with a shrug. “But showing my body on film felt like I was diverting their attention away from what should have been private and forcing them to see me the way I was willing to be seen. Being naked on set for Red Sparrow with a crew I felt I could trust – It felt like finally being in control of my own narrative again. Like, okay you can fuck me but you’re not going to violate me. I know I must sound nutty..”
“Not at all,” Jennifer Todd said. “I remember reading how comfortable you felt on set nude for your film. How the crew was more embarrassed to be around you while you were naked than you were being naked. Common thought would be ‘oh, she’s just an exhibitionist’ or maybe a little nutty but I can see now that you showing yourself was a very sane way of empowering yourself. I can see why you’d want to wield that same power on the red carpet.”
“But surely you see the difference,” Dawn interrupted. “It’s one thing to take off your clothes on a closed set. What’s that, a few dozen or so cast and crew? All professional. A few cameras filming at a pace you’re comfortable with. There are cuts and do-overs. But going on the red carpet? That’s hundreds of paparazzi and journalists, hundreds of cameras, not to mention the hundreds of fans in attendance. And all of your peers wondering what the hell you are doing. Is she crazy? An exhibitionist? Oh and lest we not forget the 30 million people watching the pre-show.”
Jennifer Todd seemed to agree. “Jennifer, aside from filming nude on the set of Red Sparrow, have you ever done something like this? I have a hard enough time wearing a two piece bathing suit at Jack Nicholson’s annual pool bash. You’re really talking about strutting your naked rear end in front of all of Hollywood. Are you even sure you could handle that?”
“To be honest, no. I haven’t done anything like that before. And I’m not positive I could handle it. I had a hard enough time even convincing myself to inquire about being allowed to. Actually going through with it will require another set of balls dropping.”
“So this whole thing – meeting with us and all – it’s really just you scratching an itch of curiosity. See if you would be allowed to without actually intending to,” Dawn said more than asked.
“No. I intend to – I’m going to if you allow me to do it. I just don’t know how I’m going to muster the courage. But I assume it will be like the time I went skydiving. I had no idea how I was going to convince myself to leap out of a plane. I fought with myself the entire time I was going over the safety instructions.
But I pushed myself to do it. Even though I was afraid. Even though I kept thinking the worst. Even though it would have been easier to just turn around and go home. I knew I would regret it if I didn’t follow through. And when the time came to jump, I jumped. I hated myself as I was flying up in the air. But loved myself after it was all over and I was kissing the grass. I can handle hating myself for awhile as long as I get to love myself afterwards.”
“But would it have to be fully nude,” Dawn asked, again coming back to the fact that I was asking to be completely naked. “Edy Williams crashed the red carpet for decades wearing bikinis, nipple pasties, and see through gowns. She even flashed her bare breasts on the carpet in the late 90’s. So there is some precedent for what you’re asking. But completely naked? No flesh colored crotch coverings? No pasties? No veils. Nothing?”
“Nothing is the only way we could pull this off,” Jennifer Todd answered for me. The “We” threw me off a bit. She wasn’t the one that would be out there fully exposed. “Edy was a Playboy model that did outrageous stunts and ‘flashed’ people on the carpet. Jennifer is above that.”
“I’m not trying to compare Jennifer with Edy,” Dawn corrected herself. “I’m just pointing out that not even a Playmate appeared completely naked.”
“Sure,” Jennifer Todd said. “But if Jennifer were to show up wearing pasties around her nipples, or half dressed as opposed to nude, it would diminish her point and be much harder to sell. There is an artistic and pure component to nudity. It’s as natural as we get. If she were to self-censor parts of her body, it would be her expressing that she believes those parts of her should be censored, or are indecent, or inappropriate for the occasion. Presenting herself raw without censor removes that commentary and possibility for contradiction.”
It was clear Jennifer Todd, a producer at heart, was already putting the show together in her head. Dawn was further behind clearly, as she looked at me to see if I agreed with the producers vision of ‘us’ pulling this off.
“It’s all or nothing,” I said in agreement. “Either I have nothing to hide or I hide everything.”
“Jesus you two,” Dawn said, shaking her head. “If this was about a transparent gown. See through, showing all the goods, but still covered in some regards I would tell you to knock yourself out. But this. Naked. Completely naked…”
I’d fully expected this response. Hell, it came later than I was expecting. There was no way she could give me permission to show up to her red carpet completely naked. No way. She had more to worry about than pleasing me and my silly fantasy. She had a reputation in her industry to maintain and the prestige of her academy. She had powerful men in suits to answer to and millions of dollars in advertising at stake. She could not risk it all to let me live out a fantasy, even if I had pitched it to them as something more powerful than that.
Told you Darren, I thought to myself as I opened my mouth to let her off the hook and back down.
But I swallowed the words in my mouth as she spoke first. “So you really think this will be an empowering statement for you? Something you won’t regret?”
There was that word again. Regret.
Greta had told me to navigate this episode of of my life with no regrets. But how was I to truly know whether I would regret this or not? I did not have the power of hindsight or the means to measure my feelings now and juxtapose them to what I anticipated feeling after I actually went through with something so public and permanent.
I was absolutely terrified of the risk involved. But my fears didn’t seem to outweigh my excitement. It wasn’t perfectly balanced, in fact as I sat here with Dawn and Jennifer Todd, the scale weighing my conflicted emotions might have been tilt in favor of the fears. But the scale was constantly fluctuating, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
“Honestly Dawn, I can’t sit here and tell you that I won’t regret it. Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll look back and say ‘Jennifer what were you thinking? That was the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in your entire life. ”
I laughed out loud, thinking about the empowerment that I kept saying would be waiting for me if I just took a leap of faith and landed naked on the red carpet.
Maybe I was wrong. And there would be no empowerment there. Just shame and regret. It wasn’t a funny thing to think about, but what can I say, I grew up laughing at my misfortune. And it would be just my luck to talk myself up into doing something like this only to have it destroy my career and ruin my life.
But who am I kidding? Making choices with the potential to ruin my life was how I’d become someone with a career in the first place. For better or worse, recklessly following my heart against all odds and better judgement was the only move that let me live with no regrets.
“What’s so funny?” Dawn asked, as I continued to laugh at my internal dialogue.
“I was just thinking. Even if this won’t empower me and instead becomes the most humiliating experience ever. At least my most embarrassing moment ever will be something I did. I owe it to myself to not be embarrassed by that hack anymore.”
It felt like a solid hour must have passed before I felt like I had fully answered Jennifer Todd’s original question of ‘why?’ And when I was finally done, I let out a huge sigh of relief. I felt satisfied, similar to the way I felt after getting in a good cry. But I hadn’t shed any tears, just the weights of anxiety that had tried to keep me from completing my character arc.
It was out of my hands now. The pressure was gone. I was off the hook and free to say I tried my best and didn’t run away from my desires. Now I could blame “the man” – or in this case, the woman” – for preventing me from actualizing my inner desires.
I folded my arms and anticipated rejection. Give it to me, sisters. Tell me I can’t go outside and play.
But I must have made my case even stronger than I originally thought because the immediate rejection I expected didn’t come when the youngest of the two power producers began speaking again.
“Quite frankly, your passion is inspiring,” Jennifer Todd said, her excitement palpable as she grabbed my hands and squeezed. “As a producer of the show, I can picture the headlines, the ratings, the conversation, the energy that would wash over the remainder of the show, and it is invigorating. It’s the kind of spontaneous, Hollywood stunt that we’ve wanted without knowing exactly what it needed to be. People would be talking about our show for a long time. I want to see this happen. I want to be the woman that allowed it to happen. ”
And here came the but…..
…..but…..instead she just kept talking.
“While I see the benefits of this as a producer, that’s not the reason I have a smile on my face,” she said. “The simplicity of your statement is beautifully complex. Provocative but not crude. A show of empowerment and vulnerability. Choosing a vehicle – your body – that is equally personal and political. A dazzling display of pathos and ethos. Aggressive and confrontational but not the bitchy kind of aggressive we often get told we’re being when we speak our minds or show any anger. That is inspiring to me, that you, Jennifer, as powerful and intelligent and talented as you are would choose this incredibly prestigious and public platform to make such a statement.”
I wasn’t exactly surprised that the woman in charge of making the show a hit would be especially interested in what my antics could do for viewership and water-cooler conversations or that she would even admit to being inspired by me trying to make a statement. But I was taken aback by how excited and animated she was becoming. Maybe I shouldn’t have been. Jennifer Todd was only seeing me the way Darren had said people would see me.
But where was the but? The reason given why she couldn’t see this crazy pitch through despite wanting to? She could see the potential in it all she wanted. But when was she going to come around to the obvious point that potential was as far as it could go?
“The biggest issue I see is the network,” Jennifer Todd said, seemingly absorbed in concentration. “Disney has a very specific image they like to portray and I’m not sure public nudity, even censored or non-sexual is a bridge they’re ready to cross. Plus the Parent Television Council and FCC have been up our ass about several of our broadcasts. And General Council won’t let us forget about the damn near ten years of litigation between the FCC and CBS over that split second nipple slip from Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl.”
She seemed disappointed in her own analysis. “ I don’t think we’d be able to show you at all on TV. “
I was ready to accept that as her way of saying no but that wasn’t what she was getting at. “On the production side, we could definitely coordinate a path for you on the red carpet so you won’t be seen on the broadcast. And we broadcast on a 5 second delay anyway.” This made her chuckle. “Do you know that nip slip forced a delay across networks but not a naked man running across the stage?”
“Naked man? What do you mean?” I asked.
“We had a naked man come on stage at the Oscars,” Dawn said. “Robert Opel.”
“Oh yeah I heard about that,” I laughed. “When was that, actually?”
“70’s,” Dawn said. “I believe it was the 46th show.”
“The 70’s were a crazy time,” Jennifer Todd said. “But somehow the climate was probably more progressive than early 21st century in regards to nudity. We all laugh at and celebrate The Streaker but Janet was basically blackballed because of her nip slip. But I think the climate now would be more welcoming of your nudity.”
“So what exactly are you saying?” I asked.
“Yes, what exactly are you saying?” Dawn echoed. “Would the wonderful folks at Disney really allow this on their station?”
Jennifer Todd reached inside her bag and pulled out a pen and notepad. She started scribbling as I sat there, trying to decipher the look in Dawn’s eyes as she looked on at me. When the producer of the Oscars was finished with whatever she was doing on her notepad she presented it to me.
“This is the red carpet,” she said, pointing to the path she’d drawn. It was only then that I realized she had sketched a rough outline of the entire red carpet area, including where paparazzi and journalists were allowed and the predetermined paths for non-celebs to walk to avoid the press.
“We could put you on this path on commercial break times to make sure you’re not in the line of sight for any of our five broadcast areas. You’d be able to still walk the carpet as normal, pose for photos, mingle, but if we kept you to a strict schedule, we could avoid having you seen on camera. We do this for certain people every year anyway.”
Hearing that there was a path toward me walking the red carpet naked gave me a huge wave of anxiety and tingling feelings.
“So you’re saying, I’m allowed to actually do it?”
“Why so sullen?” Jennifer Todd asked. “Isn’t that what you want to hear?”
“I…I just didn’t expect that there would be any way…I mean, ABC is the most family friendly station, right?”
“Jennifer, unless your goal is to be nude on live TV without censorship, we can’t stand in your way. Not the production side of things. We don’t own the theater. We don’t own the red carpet. And we don’t enforce dress code. We decide where to point the camera and who sits where inside the theater. We put on the show, everything else is Dawn’s jurisdiction.”
I felt my heart sink inside my chest. Was the producer of the show really telling me she couldn’t stop me from showing up completely naked?
I felt one step closer to my fantasy. It was a terrifying step forward.
But surely, it would stop here, right? This was the end of the road for my fantasy. Dawn was going to put the nail in the coffin.
I turned to the chief executive officer of the Academy, with conflicting desires racing through me.
Please say no.
Please say yes.
Please just say something. I can’t wait any longer.
“So it’s really up to me?” Dawn said, obviously drawing this painful process out.
“Personally, I’m sold,” Jennifer Todd said to her friend and colleague, who was nearly 20 years her senior. “We’ve talked about how we wanted this to be a bold, memorable show, not a depressing, funeral. If she wants to wear nothing, that’s…something.”
“Something indeed,” Dawn said. “Something memorable. Something bold. And also something I’d have to have a conversation with the board of governors about.”
Jennifer Todd shared a look with Dawn that got the friends to look at each other for a few awkward moments. It wasn’t exactly a hostile look, but a mix between disappointment and annoyance. It was as if the two had discussed something before hand and Dawn was diverting from whatever they had agreed about.
“Are you really going to put this to a vote?” Jennifer Todd asked. “Punt the decision over to the President? Let a man make the call?”
“The Academy is a democracy,” Dawn responded to her friend. “I don’t dictate what happens.”
“You’ve spearheaded the biggest changes the Academy has seen in years. Fundamentally changing the structure of the membership, getting rid of lifetime membership and raising revenue every year. These things don’t happen without Dawn Hudson leading the charge.”
“They don’t happen without a vote,” Dawn retorted. “I’m not the sole decision maker in that room.”
“But you are the most influential decision maker in the room. They follow your leadership. If you present this with the enthusiasm and conviction that you had for every other initiative, who is going to stand in your way? The President? John practically worships you. Which branch is going to oppose you? The actors? The public relations branch? The costume designers branch?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dawn said. “I don’t make the decision Jennifer. I just don’t. Not without full support of the board.”
“I understand that Dawn but just listen to me. Jennifer came to us – to you for a reason. It should be a woman that decides if something as…personal to women’s freedom of expression is allowed to happen at your – at our show. You are the most powerful woman inside the Academy. We know everything there is put to a vote. But the decisions are made before anyone actually votes. You make the decision here and now to allow it, and Jennifer will be able to show up completely naked on Sunday. It’s as simple as that.”
It was clear, Dawn and Jennifer Todd had been having ideological differences regarding this show and I had only brought those views into sharp focus. I felt squeezed between them and it was uncomfortable.
“I don’t want this to cause any problems,” I started but Jennifer Todd interrupted me.
“No, Jennifer. What you pitched to us is exactly what this show needs. Me and Dawn have talked about what we could do to make this show groundbreaking, and here you showed up. Like a blessing from God right in our lap. She’s just hesitating to make the call.”
“Making this call comes with an extraordinary amount of responsibility,” Dawn said. “Do you truly realize the weight of my decision? The scrutiny I would receive for allowing a naked woman at the Oscars? This is unprecedented. And I don’t take choices like this lightly.”
There was a long and awkward pause of complete silence as Dawn Hudson sat with her thoughts and contemplated the unprecedented proposal in her lap. When she finally came to a decision she gathered herself and looked directly into my eyes.
“I want you to know if it was anybody else, my answer would be no. But I’m willing to go to bat for you in that boardroom Jennifer Lawrence. I’m willing to face the media scrutiny and support you in all of the channels that will make this possible.”
I felt my heart miss a few beats as her words fell deeper into my conscious. She said yes. Oh Jennifer what have you done, she actually said YES.
Dawn Hudson was telling me that that impossible fantasy of mine, was possible.
“This is such an important show. The world will be watching, even more of the world than usual because of the scandals. So I’m taking a step back and giving this show back to our women. This is your show this year. And I want to be fully accommodating and supportive for women to express themselves, especially women that have been directly violated or affected by the negativity of this industry. This is your platform to celebrate, rebuke, be transparent, self reflective, and if you want, forgo the typical gown associated with this formal event.”
Dawn was clearly going into pitch mode to help prepare her for how she would sell this to John, the President of the Academy, and the media when they came barking. “We’ve always been about challenging the status quo, making political and artistic statements that made people uncomfortable. If we can celebrate a nude body on film then why can’t we allow that same nude body on our red carpet? Now is the perfect time to have discussions of sexual harassment, free speech, feminism, body acceptance, right wrongs and become empowered. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like the Dawn I know,” Jennifer Todd smiled. “Beautifully said.”
“Well we need to be on message whenever the time comes to explain ourselves,” Dawn said. “And trust me, all three of us will need to explain ourselves well if we don’t want it to blow up in our faces.”
The solidarity shown in that moment made me want to hug them both. But I held my emotions and just smiled.
“We need to go over the logistics of this,” Dawn said while reaching for the notepad that depicted the area I would be walking around naked. “Before I make the call to John. We really need to talk this out, thoroughly.”
And thoroughly go over the details, we did. The discussion went on so long, brunch turned into lunch. I was totally off my diet now as the waiter brought burgers, crusted salmon, pasta with black truffle, and shakes to the table. And totally out of my mind as we went through how this was going to go.
Dawn was munching on some fries when she said “Holdup.” She washed down her food with some shake and cleared her throat. “Before we go any further, we need to make sure this is even legal.”
“Yeah that’s right. We can offend the FCC but we can’t actually break any laws doing this,” Jennifer Todd agreed.
Dawn finished wiping her hands with a napkin and pulled out her phone. “I’m going to make a call to Connie.”
Jennifer Todd seemed to know exactly who that was but I still in the dark.
“Who’s Connie?” I asked as I took a bite out of my pasta.
“General Counsel,” Jennifer Todd said as she scooped some brown rice into her fork of salmon.
I nodded while Dawn greeted Connie over the phone. She didn’t take very long to get to the point of her call. “This is very discreet. But hypothetically, if we had an actress that wanted to appear on the red carpet completely nude. No pasties or anything. Would this be legal? Are there any ordinances against it since this technically would be public nudity.”
A few moments later, Dawn said “Just hypothetically. Just trying to find out if something like that is legally acceptable.”
It felt really weird eating pasta while my stomach did flips while waiting for an answer to Dawn’s inquiry. Dawn was saying “uh huh” and “sure” into the phone and writing down things on a notepad. A part of me still wanted an easy out. If it was illegal, then I was off the hook and could blame California laws for stopping my expression. But the other part of me dreaded the possibility of this dream coming to an abrupt end. I wasn’t ready to wake up yet. I wanted this high of nervous excitement to continue.
“Okay, Connie I’m going to put you on speaker so Jennifer Todd can hear can hear what you just told me,,” Dawn said before pressing her speaker button and setting the phone on the table. “Okay you’re on speaker now. Can you repeat that?”
“Sure,” the voice on the phone said loud. “Hey Jennifer, how are you?”
“I’m doing great Connie,” Jennifer Todd said.
“You trying to appear nude on the red carpet?” Connie asked.
“I don’t know, maybe,” Jennifer Todd giggled as she looked over at me. “If I do, am I going to jail?”
“Are you doing it get your rocks off?” she asked.
“Is that the line?” Jennifer Todd asked.
“Basically, yes. Public nudity isn’t a crime, indecent exposure is. And under California law, to be guilty of indecent exposure, she must one, willingly expose her genitals, two, do it in front of someone who would be offended, three, direct attention to the genitals, and four, do so with the intent to sexually arouse her or those around her. Each and every one of these elements must be in play for her public nudity to be criminally liable.”
“Well no. Hypothetically, the intent wouldn’t be to arouse anyone, it would be an artistic statement,” Jennifer Todd said.
“Then as far as I can see, this would be fine,” Connie said. “But you ladies did put me on the spot while I’m having lunch. Give me some time and I could check the local ordinances and any notable cases to make certain I’m right.”
“That would be awesome Connie,” Jennifer Todd said. “And sorry for interrupting your lunch!”
“No worries. I am tickled over you and Dawn even calling to ask me about this. Sounds like something interesting is going to happen on Sunday.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Dawn said. “Be discreet. And give me a call back tonight.”
“Absolutely. I’ll talk to you later.”
When they were off the phone, Dawn gave me a funny look. “I gotta ask Jennifer. You aren’t doing this for any sexual excitement, right?”
My heart jumped in my throat. “Oh no. Not at all. No, that would be very inappropriate. And as I just heard, pretty illegal too.”
She nodded, even though her eyes lingered on me as if she needed to make sure I was telling her the truth. “I hope I didn’t offend you by asking. We’re just covering all of our bases here.”
“No I understand. You need to make sure I’m not so exhibitionist slut using the red carpet to fulfil some public nudity fantasy by strutting her naked ass up and down the carpet in front of a bunch of clothed people. Let me assure you now, I’m not that girl.”
“Okay, that’s good to hear,” she said. I broke eye contact almost immediately to stick the fork into my pasta.
We all eventually agreed that we should keep this secret until showtime; both to maximize the awe-factor and so I could back away if I decided at the last minute that I didn’t want to do it. No one at the table wanted TMZ or any other tabloid blog to leak that I was planning to show up naked to the ceremony. We didn’t want the discussion of my stunt to take place before my stunt actually happened. It would rob the actual moment of its power and possibly poison the well.
So Dawn was only going to mention to the President John Bailey that they could potentially have a guest show up in a state of undress as a political statement. “State of undress” was vague enough that it didn’t necessarily have to mean completely naked. It could theoretically mean a topless person, or a transparent gown, or something more or less extreme. It was her way of telling the truth without fully being forthcoming about how undressed this person was going to be.
She would leave the board completely out of the loop so all potential backlash would rest squarely with her and John. They were strong enough to handle it. So much for it being a democracy.
Jennifer Todd had a more difficult task. She was going to have to clue in her co-producer on a potential guest in a state of undress, and coordinate a path on the red carpet for this guest to avoid being seen by cameras broadcasting the show. She too would omit who the potential guest was, but there were several more people up the chain at ABC and Disney that would have to sign off on the idea before it would be good to go.
“And what’s the likelihood that they all say yes?” I asked.
She smiled at me. “Hollywood is politics sweetheart. Favors, back scratching, quid quo pro. Luckily many men up in those offices owe me a few favors. I’ve been looking for a reason to cash in.”
There was something powerful about three powerful women calling the shots, making clandestine deals while having lunch. It only made my specialty shake taste even sweeter.
I called Darren later that day after the meeting was over. “So how did it go?” he asked after I beat around the bush, hoping to draw out the excitement that I was feeling.
“Fuck me,” was how I answered him. “Fuck me, fuck me, Fuck. Me.”
He laughed. “I told you they would let you do it. They love you.”
“And I hate you,” I spat before laughing with him. The joke was a fib, obviously. I loved Darren with parts of my heart I kept private from everyone else. But there was still something I did hate about having that part of my heart vulnerable to his wits. It was his words, his pestering, his insights into my desires that had convinced me to follow this path.
So it was his fault, really. I was about to appear completely naked on the red carpet all because he had to be so persuasive. I was both grateful for him and resentful of him. It made little sense and that made me laugh too.
After we got the laughter out of the way his voice firmed. “So you admitted you wanted to do this. You spent an entire evening naked around strangers to reinforce that you want to do this. And the people in charge have given you the green light. Full speed ahead right?”
“Maybe I need just a tad bit more convincing,” I purred.
“That can be arranged,” he flirted.
We met up the next day in New York and he “convinced” me a few times before I got dressed and headed to the Ed Sullivan Studio for my appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Despite meeting up with Darren for…convincing…my trip to New York was professional. I was still on a promotion tour for my film Red Sparrow – my trip to L.A. to meet with Dawn and Jennifer Todd had been a detour – and that meant appearance after appearance and interview after interview.
Normally by this point, months into a press tour, I would have been exhausted and miserable. But I was drunk off a cocktail of emotions and high off post-orgasm bliss. I felt happy and excited in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Jennifer Todd and Dawn Hudson had kept in contact with me throughout the day, giving me updates on what the higher ups were saying about fully giving me permission to crash the red carpet with my naked body.
I hadn’t truly accepted that this was going to happen. Something in me, pessimism or optimism I wasn’t sure, kept telling me that I was going to get a call that killed the dream.
Freaking Bob Iger, the CEO at Disney, was going to catch wind of the conversation happening behind closed doors about a potential guest showing up in a state of undress, and call me personally to tell me to put some clothes on and sit my white ass down somewhere.
But a call from Bob Iger never came. Nor did one from any other men in power suits with the ability to shut this all down. The call I did receive about fifteen minutes before I was brought on stage with Colbert was from Jennifer Todd.
I looked at her name flashing on the phone and felt dread in the pit of my stomach. But when I answered and I heard the tone of her voice, that dread transformed back into a pure form of excitement. The kind of excitement a kid might feel a few days before Christmas whenever they see a big ass presents under the tree with their name on it.
“We’re all clear,” Jennifer Todd said with the authority of a boss. “You’re good to go for Sunday. And no one knows it’s you.”
“Thank you,” I told her. I couldn’t go into detail why because I was surrounded by makeup people and producers in the dressing room. “For everything.”
“It’s been my pleasure,” she said. “Let me ask you this, though. Are you sure you don’t want to walk in the press line?”
“Are you asking if I want to do press while…I’m on the carpet?” I asked.
“Yeah, with ABC of course. For the pre-show. Yesterday I thought for sure you wouldn’t be allowed on the broadcast but after speaking with enough people, I can clear you to interview with a host of your choosing on the carpet.”
“I don’t know,” I said as makeup was applied to my cheek. I really couldn’t say what I wanted to say.
“It’s totally up to you but I would really love it if you said yes. You would be hidden behind a censor for the television broadcast. But I just think it would be a big waste if we really got you on the carpet naked but you didn’t do an interview. For posterity more than anything.”
In other words, she would hate to miss out on the huge ratings that a naked interview with me would most certainly bring. And the official exclusive interview that they could replay over and over again for the next 100 years. The thought of my naked body being relevant that long excited me. And truth be told, I was in no mood to disappoint anyone.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“Really? That’s so good to hear. Do you have a preference? Sara Haines? Krista Smith? The Good Morning America main stage?”
“I don’t really care about the interviewer. I’d just rather not be on the big main stage,” I told her. “Just to get it out of the way, I’d prefer interviewing in the first booth. The one right after you get on the carpet.”
“Awesome. I’ll talk to your publicist about the time and details,” she said. “Have a good show tonight. I’ll be watching.”
“Thanks.”
“No Jennifer. Thank you.”