Ex-Coronation Street actress Melissa Johns has said she felt 'mortified' after intimate photos were shared of her.
In 2018, the soap star, who is best known for playing Imogen Pascoe on the cobbles between 2017 and 2019, found that her iCloud was hacked. Someone had cruelly posted her erotic photos onto a disabled fetish website.
The incident made the actress, who was born without a forearm and hand, feel like she was 'out of control'. Today, she appeared on Loose Women as she explained how she took that control back.
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When asked how it made her feel, Melissa said: "Mortified. Scary. Terrifying. When you find out that someone disrespects you like that and your body is on the internet for all the world to see, however you think you would feel is how you feel."
She continued to explain how she found out that her images were out there for all to see. She said: "My agent called me. My wonderful, wonderful agent. They called and said the papers have got hold of this and so for the first few hours I just cried and cried and cried.
"And then, that loss of control was really horrible. I was like I have no control over it and that's the feeling that doesn't sit well with me.
"I went onto the site and I just forced myself to look at what had been written about me. I just thought I need some sort of control here because this feels way out of depth.
"I read the way that my body had been ripped apart with words - not only as a woman but as a disabled woman. A woman with a body difference. We have all been bullied, we all know what it's like to hear bad things about us but I had never read anything as disgusting as that."
But Melissa got her tears out of the way and then decided to fight back. She said: "That's when I thought I can't let this happen. I don't know what my one voice can do but I have to be a part of a series of voices that can try and stop this."
Four years after the incident, Melissa is taking ownership of her story with a one-woman show to fight back. Her show, Snatched, explores the taboo of sex and disability whilst advocating female sexuality
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