Viswa Vanapalli
In 2012, Charlotte Laws’ daughter, Kayla Laws, came up to her with some shocking information: her private images were published on a website. What started as an effort to take those pictures down turned into a full-fledged crusade to go after the man behind the site, Hunter Moore. Netflix’s ‘The Most Hated Man on the Internet’ is a three-part documentary dealing with how Charlotte pushed for justice despite the odds against her. So, let’s find out more about what happened then, shall we?
Who is Charlotte Laws?
Charlotte Laws grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and lived in California at the time of the incident. After dabbling in acting and many other jobs, Charlotte worked as an investigator for an insurance company in 2012 when Kayla made the fateful call. Her daughter’s intimate images had been made public on a site called Is Anyone Up? At the time, Kayla had clicked a few photographs in her bedroom and had never shared them. However, she had sent them to her email after running out of space on her phone.
Soon after, Kayla learned about her email being hacked and her pictures appearing online. When Charlotte learned of it, she visited the site and was appalled by what she saw. Charlotte added, “There were attempts to get victims to kill themselves, or calling them fat and ugly. It wasn’t just 20-year-old beauties. It was women over 60, people who were overweight, and even a blind paraplegic. The website brought out the worst in male misogynists. I was freaked out about this happening to my daughter.”
It wasn’t just the images; Kayla’s social media details were posted along with them, making it easy for people to contact her or send vile messages. Charlotte eventually learned that Hunter Moore was behind the site and even tried asking him to take them down, but nothing changed. At the time, Charlotte’s husband, Charles Parselle, asked them to ignore it, and the LAPD seemed to blame Kayla for the photos. So, Charlotte took it upon herself to ensure those photos were removed.
Regarding Hunter, Charlotte said, “He was bragging all over the internet. This sleazeball was sitting in his parents’ basement, having found he could work with a computer hacker to steal pictures of innocent girls and make money.” She began talking to others that went through the same thing and realized that many of them had been hacked before the pictures were made public.
Despite the constant death and rape threats from Hunter’s supporters, Charlotte’s efforts paid off when the FBI finally picked up the case. In the end, Hunter’s encounter with an anti-bullying campaigner, James McGibney, resulted in the site finally going down. But he then announced that he would return with another website. This led Charlotte to make Hunter’s address public, resulting in more online vitriol from Hunter and his followers.
Where is Charlotte Laws Today?
Charlotte Laws later talked about how talking to the other survivors affected her. She said, “I’m not an emotional person, but I found myself in tears talking to these women. They were traumatized. I was only contacting the women who’d been uploaded onto the site in a day or two before or after Kayla, so a lot of them didn’t even know. I had to break it to them, and they were freaking out.” Ultimately, Charlotte’s efforts lead to Hunter’s arrest and conviction, resulting in a win for her.
Charlotte has donned many hats over the years: she’s been a cab driver, a bodyguard, a standup comic, a stripper, a private investigator, and even lectured at the FBI Academy. With some background in politics in her locality, Charlotte campaigned to make revenge porn illegal, and over time, made that a reality in 48 states. Apart from that, she has counseled hundreds of survivors who went through these horrific experiences.
Talking of such uploads, the loving mother said, “It should be classified as a sex crime. Women I’ve spoken with who were raped have said that having revenge porn made public was as bad, if not worse, than the sexual assault.” During Charlotte’s younger days, she was known to gatecrash exclusive celebrity parties and even wrote books about it. In 2014, Charlotte claimed that Bill Cosby had drugged one of her friends sometime during the early 1980s.
Charlotte has worked for several news outlets in addition to being a political analyst for BBC. She is also a celebrated author, having released memoirs — ‘Rebel in High Heels’ and ‘Undercover Debutante’ — and a few other books. Currently, Charlotte lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Charles Parselle, a lawyer. She has continued her activism since then; her social media constantly features her bringing up relevant issues from her locality.
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