Naga Munchetty has said she was left feeling “mortified” after discovering fake nude pictures of her have been circulated online as part of a ruse to con people out of money.
The BBC Breakfast presenter, 49, says she was alerted to the fact by friends and followers who had sent screenshots of paid-for advertisements popping up on social media with some including “crudely mocked-up images of me naked – my face badly photoshopped onto someone else's body”.
The former Strictly Come Dancing star penned an article for BBC News in which she said she was “both mortified and bemused, curious about who would pay good money to spread such obvious nonsense. And what was their motive? Is it something malicious? Someone with an axe to grind?”
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She then explained how she had discussed it with colleagues who helped her look into it further and “it soon became apparent that my name and image were being used by scammers to try to hoodwink people out of money.”
People clicking on the adverts were taken to a fake news article, complete with BBC logo and imagery.
“The fake article about me suggested I had been detained by the government following a ‘controversial’ interview on ITV's This Morning, where I allegedly gave details about a ‘lucrative loophole’ to make money,” she continued.
“It was made to look like a BBC News article, complete with logo and branding, and it contained links to a scam cyber trading website, which has now been taken down after my production team reported it to the BBC legal team.”
Munchetty said she was “lucky” that the BBC legal department were able to act swiftly in getting the ads taken down due to copyright laws, but that she has been warned “another website is likely to pop up soon enough”.
She further noted that getting ads removed from X, formerly Twitter “has become more difficult since it changed ownership”.
The broadcaster is not the only celebrity to have been targeted in these types of scams, referrencing Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis and Wildlife TV presenter Chris Packham as other victims.
Munchetty said that while she found such articles and fakes images being spread about “mildly upsetting”, that her “main motivation for speaking out about them is to try to stop anyone handing over any money or personal information to these scammers.”
