Inside the Fake-Islamic Site Posting Hacked Nude Photos of A-List Celebrities
The operator of Celeb Jihad, the website posting stolen nude images of a bevy of celebrities, talks to Marlow Stern about its aims.
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast
“We publish anything we find that exposes the vile celebrity harlots for what they truly are.”
That is just a sampling of my bizarre email exchange with the anonymous celebrity-loathing operator of Celeb Jihad, a satirical celebrity gossip website that’s received extra scrutiny of late for posting nude images of celebrities that were allegedly hacked from their phones.
Over the past week, the site has been publishing nude images and videos of celebrities including golfer Tiger Woods, Olympic gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn, Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus, Katharine McPhee, Dakota Johnson, and others. A rep for Vonn—who dated Woods from off and on from 2012 to 2015—released a statement to The Big Lead stating that the private images of her and Woods were hacked off her phone and that the Olympian is exploring legal action.
“It is an outrageous and despicable invasion of privacy for anyone to steal and illegally publish private intimate photos. Lindsey will take all necessary and appropriate legal action to protect and enforce her rights and interests. She believes the individuals responsible for hacking her private photos as well as the websites that encourage this detestable conduct should be prosecuted to the fullest extent under the law,” it read.
The person behind Celeb Jihad, a site that bills itself as a “holy Islamic extremist gossip site” but is surely anything but, claims: “I have no idea if these photos were stolen.” He further alleges that “everyone but Miley [Cyrus],” who “clearly has a good heart,” has threatened the site with cease-and-desist letters and that he agreed to take down Woods and Vonn’s nude images after being sent a cease-and-desist by Vonn’s attorney.
The site has also removed stolen nude photos of several other celebrities who threatened the site with legal action, including McPhee, though many of the images remain—and the site has continued to post new leaked images of celebrities each day.
“I was hacked sometime in the last few years, and along with other celebrities a few days ago, my private photos were blasted all over some sick and despicable websites,” McPhee told People. “The photos that are mine I am not ashamed of. I love my body and they were taken for a man I was deeply in love with, or for no one but myself. But what is also truly disgusting is that these sites include photos that do not belong to me, and are not of my body, and I’ve learned this happens continually.”
Indeed, many of the supposed X-rated images and videos of famous people on Celeb Jihad are clear fakes—including a photo of a nude Taylor Swift that is merely Swift’s head Photoshopped onto a porn star’s body. A video professing to be a sex tape of Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner is a clip of redheaded adult actress Jenny Blighe, while footage billed as “Megan Fox Sex Tape Video Leaked” features Fox lookalike Megan Rain, another porn star.
The operator of Celeb Jihad goes by the troll name “Durka Durka Mohammed” and, in addition to celebrity nudes both real and fake (including softcore clips of famous actresses from Hollywood films), has littered his site with Islamophobic photos and memes.
During our brief correspondence he slut-shamed his victims by invoking “Sharia law” and said, “We have been denouncing the Zionist entertainment industry for nearly 10 years now.” According to Domain Tools, the site is registered by Domains by Proxy, a domain privacy service linked to the hosting company GoDaddy, so its domain registration information has been anonymized.
Back in 2011, Swift threatened Celeb Jihad—then known as Celebrity Jihad—with legal action after the site published a fake nude photo of the pop star under the headline “Taylor Swift Topless Private Pic Leaked?”
In the letter to the site, Swift’s camp said that the site contains “false pornographic images and false ‘news’” about the singer-songwriter. The site responded with a message to E! News: “We are 100% serious about removing the picture if Taylor Swift agrees to convert to Islam.”