While McKayla Maroney has denied that the photos leaked in what’s been termed ‘the fappening’ this past weekend are of her, reddit has another concern. When the photos were taken, McKayla was underage. The social site issued a warning Tuesday afternoon forbidding the posting of any McKayla Maroney pics.
The entire warning can be read here, but this is the relevant portion:
The reddit.com site admins have let us know that McKayla Maroney was underage in the photos as well and that we need to remove them. If we don’t remove them, then this subreddit will most likely be banned (very quickly).
Liz Lee was not part of the leaks, but people have been posting her images anyways. Liz’s pictures were taken in 2007 when she was 16 years old by an ex of hers. He is a current sex offender because he posted them to 4chan. We have been instructed by the reddit admins to remove these images as well.
http://reddit.com/rules[1] If you are skeptical in any way, just remember that it is better to be safe than sorry.
Due to this, we will be removing any and all things that contain their images. It is considered CP (Child Pornography), and breaks reddit’s site-wide rules[2] (in addition to international law, age of consent is completely different than child pornography), and will get this subreddit banned if we were to allow them to be posted.
Maroney initially denied that the images were of her at all.
the fake photos of me are crazy!! was trying to rise above it all, and not give “the creator” the time of day.. BUT.. pic.twitter.com/hceQcOxYkJ
— McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) September 1, 2014
Now, however, TMZ says that an attorney for Maroney has sent directives to several porn sites stating that the photos are McKayla’s property, and demanding that they be removed.
In at least one of these letters, the attorney notes that his client is underage in the photos. McKayla Maroney turned 18 only this past December.