Ian Gavan/Getty ImagesJessica Brown Findlay, who played Lady Sybil Crawley for the first three seasons of Downton Abbey, is one of the latest celebrities confirmed to have been targeted in a massive leak of nude celebrity images.
The scandal, whose victims also include Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, is one of the largest celebrity privacy breaches and is being "addressed" by the FBI and investigated by Apple, maker of the popular online file storage service iCloud. The leak of the stolen personal material has made headlines and also spurred jokes.
A spokeswoman for the actress told the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph that Brown Findlay appears in stolen video clips, without elaborating. An attorney for the star called the leak "a serious violation of her rights" and said it caused her "extreme distress and embarrassment."
"Any publication of the photographs (pixilated or otherwise) or the video or any reference to them will perpetuate this distress and further the serious violation of our client's rights in relation to her privacy," the law firm, Schillings Solicitors, wrote in a letter to U.K. publications.
According to The Daily Beast and the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail, footage from a "sex tape" allegedly showing the actress was posted online. Her reps have not confirmed the authenticity of the video.
The latter publication said that for several hours, searches for her name on Google led to a link to explicit footage, which showed up on the first page of results. It quoted a rep for the company as saying that "searches for 'Jessica Brown Findlay' no longer deliver the video on the front page, which should limit its exposure.'"
Earlier this week, Apple said its iCloud system was secure and that the celebrities whose personal photos were stolen were part of a "targeted attack." No arrests have been made and authorities have not identified any hacking suspects. Such crimes could carry a jail sentence.