Georgia Harrison opens up about ongoing struggles with revenge porn trauma in new ITV documentary
Georgia Harrison says in a new documentary that she continues to 'really struggle' with how a sexually explicit video of her is still widely available online.
The 30-year-old former Love Island and The Only Way is Essex star has been open about her former partner and Celebrity Big Brother winner, Stephen Bear, being convicted after sharing the private film of them having sex without her consent – otherwise known as revenge porn.
She waived her right to anonymity and has discussed the distress the incident has caused her, notably on the ITV documentary Revenge Porn: Georgia vs Bear.
Bear, 35, was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2023 after being found guilty of voyeurism and two counts of disclosing private sexual photographs and films with the intent to cause distress. However, he only served half of that sentence and was released in January 2024. He then was ordered to pay the estimated £22,305 he earned from illegally sharing the film on OnlyFans.
Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit documentary
Discussing the video in her new two-part ITV documentary Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit, which examines the revenge porn industry, image-based sexual abuse and deepfakes, she said that it was challenging seeing how it continued to be readily available to view.
'The hardest part for me was having to see how widespread my video still is. I have a lot of people messaging me all the time, sending me clips of it. It's always something in the back of my mind, but having to really face head on exactly where it is and how many places it's in was a real struggle for me.'
She had to track down the places the leaked video still existed. 'What we really wanted to do was get to the bottom of who is behind the posting of image-based sexual abuse that's still out there.
'The first part involves me having to really look into where my video still is, which is obviously really tough, but by doing that we could then decipher how many different sites it was on.'
Image-based sexual abuse is an industry-wide issue
As part of the series, Georgia met victims, journalists and a representative from a porn site. She also spoke to MPs on the Women and Equalities Committee and at the Labour Party Conference.
She called on authorities to take greater responsibility in clamping down on such activity: 'The only way for it to be impossible for not only my video, but any victim of image-based sexual abuse's video, not to be online in the future, is for there to be more awareness and for the government and higher-up companies within the internet to get together and face it head on.
'If you can stop the people higher up from investing into the advertisement at the bottom, then the people at the bottom won’t keep putting up un-consented footage because they won’t be making any money off it.
'It’s just exposing the ecosystem. And with deepfakes, it’s exposing the issue because so many people aren’t aware of... how damaging it is to society, how much it’s catching us all up, how much it’s ruining young people’s lives.
Georgia also said that she was regularly contacted by mothers whose children have also 'appeared' in AI-created videos. 'It's the same feeling of humiliation, a violation of literally being de-clothed without your consent. Just because it's fake, doesn't mean it doesn't evoke the same emotion within the victim it affects.'
Government initiatives to tackle deepfakes
In 2023, the previous Conservative government passed the Online Safety Act, which required social media companies to protect users from harmful content. However, last month, the Labour government's technology secretary Peter Kyle described UK laws on internet safety as 'very uneven' and 'unsatisfactory'.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper at the beginning of this month announced plans to make the UK to first country in the world where it would be illegal ot own AI tools designed to create images of child sexual abuse. The offence will be punishable by up to five years in prison.
Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit airs on Tuesday February 18 and Wednesday February 19 at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.
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