Blake Lively Blasts ‘Deceitful’ Tabloid for Photographers Stalking her Children

Blake Lively accused a tabloid of deceit when it posted a photo of her with her children, making it appear she was happily waving at photographers. That could not be further from the truth though, the A Simple Favor star claimed. According to her, she and her children were “stalked” by men the entire day the photos were taken. At one point, a stranger confronted the photographers on Lively’s behalf, she wrote. Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds are parents to three daughters, James, 6, Inez, 4, and Betty, 21 months.

On Thursday, The Daily Mail Australia posted photos of Lively with her daughters in New York City. The Instagram post mashed two photos together, one showing Lively pushing James and Inez in a carriage and holding Betty. The other photo showed Lively waving to the camera. Lively, 33, called the edit “deceitful,” and she was not happy at all.

Lively and her children were being stalked by a man “all day,” Lively wrote. The man would jump out and then hide as he took photos. “A stranger on the street got into words with them because it was so upsetting for her to see,” Lively continued. “When I tried to calmly approach the photographer you hired to take these pictures in order to speak to him, he would run away. And jump out again at the next block.”

The former Gossip Girl star asked the Daily Mail if they do any background checks on the photographers “you pay to stalk children.” She continued, “Where is your morality here? I would like to know. Or do you simply not care about the safety of children?” Lively said she did speak with some photographers, and would only let them take her photo if they did not take a picture of her children. She called the experience “frightening.”
“Tell the whole story [Daily Mail],” she wrote. “At minimum, listen to your followers. They too understand this is dark and upsetting that you pay people to stalk children. Please stop paying grown-ass men to hide and hunt children. There are plenty of pictures you could’ve published without the kids. Please delete. C’mon. Get with the times.”

Lively isn’t the only celebrity mother pleading with paparazzi and social media accounts to stop taking and sharing photos of their children. Just last week, model Gigi Hadid asked the media and fan accounts to stop sharing photos of her and Zayn Malik’s 9-month-old daughter Khai. “As our baby grows up we have to realize that we can’t protect her from everything the way we wanted to and could when she was smaller,” Hadid began. “She loves seeing the world! And although she gets a lot of that out near the farm, she also gets to experience other places—a true blessing. On our most recent visits to New York, she has started to want her sunshade lifted up (something she is used to at home) and helps herself to it!”

Hadid said her daughter does not understand why she has to stay under a cover whenever they visit the city. She wished Khai could enjoy the sights of the city, but that is impossible if Hadid also wants to protect her daughter’s privacy. Hadid and Malik have never intentionally shared photos of Khai’s face on social media, and they asked the media to do the same.

“It would mean the world to us, as we take our daughter to see and explore NYC and the world if you would PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE blur her face out of images, if and when she is caught on camera,” Hadid wrote. “I know it’s an extra effort—but as a new mom, I just want the best for my baby, as all parents do… and I hope this can continue the conversation to protect minors in the media, even if they come from a public family.”