september14–27, 2020| new york 23I present myself to the world, a shrine to my autonomy. If
I wanted to see that picture every day, I could just look at my
own grid.
To my boyfriend’s disappointment, his gallerist friend texted him
only a few days later to say that a big-time collector wanted it.
I knew of the gallerist through a bunch of different people and
had met him once or twice, so it didn’t take long to find out what
actually happened to the piece. The giant image of me was hang-
ing above the couch in his West Village apartment.
“It’s kind of awkward,” a friend of mine said, describing the
painting’s placement in the gallerist’s home. “He, like, sits under
naked you.”
But it turned out Prince had made another Instagram painting
ofme,andthisonewasstillavailable.Thepiecewasa reproduc-
tion of a photo from my first appearance in Sports Illustrated.
I was paid $150 for the shoot and a couple grand later, when the
magazine came out, for the “usage” of my image. I hatedmost of
the photos from that spread because I didn’t look likemyself:
The makeup was too heavy, there were too many extensions in
my hair, and the editors had kept telling me to smile in a fake
way. But I did like a few of the images of me in body paint and
had posted one of those pictures, which Prince then reused for
this “painting.”
Prince’s comment on that post, included among several others
at the bottom of the painting, alludes to an imagined day he has
spentwithmeonthebeach:“Utoldmethetruth.Ulostthe
[anchoremoji].Nohurt. No upset. Allenergy bunny nowthat
it’ s sunny,”it reads.I likedthecommentheleft onthisonefar
betterthanhiscommentontheblack-and-whitestudy,where
heasks,“Wereyoubuiltina sciencelabbyteenage boys?”
WhenI realizedwehadtheopportunity toprocurethisone,
it suddenlyfeltimportanttomethat I ownat least halfofit;we
decidedtopurchaseit directlyfromtheartistandsplitthecost
downthemiddle.I likedtheideaofgettingintocollectingart,
andthePrinceseemedlike a smart investment.Butmostly,
I couldn’t imaginenothavinga claimonsomethingthat would
hanginmyhome.AndI knewmy boyfriendfeltlike thiswas
some kind of conquest; he’d worked hard to get it.
I shouldbeappreciative,I thought.Justsplititwithhim.
Besides,I was23;I hadn’t madeenoughmoney tocomfortably
spend$80,000onart.
Whenthepiecearrived,I wasannoyed.I’dseenonlinethat
othersubjectsoftheInstagrampaintingswerebeinggifted
“studies,” thesmallerdraftsofthefinalworks.My boyfriend
askedthestudio,andsomemonthslater,a 24-inchmounted
black-and-white“study” arrived.It wasa differentshotthanthe
largepiecewehadpurchased,butI stillfeltvictorious.
Whenourrelationshipended,abouta yearanda halflater,
I assumedhewouldn’t wantthecanvas—agiantpictureof me,now
hisex—sowebegantomake arrangementstodivideourbelong-
ings,includingtheartworkwehadboughttogether.In exchange
fortwootherpiecesofart, I receivedownershipofthePrince.
A fewweekslater,I realized—sittingupstraight,half-asleep
inmybedwithmy jawclenchedinthemiddleofthenight—
that I hadn’t collectedtheblack-and-whitestudythestudio
hadgiftedtome.My ex toldmehe“hadn’t thoughtaboutthat”
andtoldmehe’d movedthepieceintostorage.We wentback
andforthviaemailuntilhetoldmeI neededtopay him
$10,000forthestudy, a pricehe’darrivedat fromhis“knowl-
edge ofthemarket.”
“Butit wasa gifttome!”I wrote.
I r d outtoP stu ld om
ora ce? Help hi k culo -
som?Throughmy contacts,I wasassuredthat they wouldreach
outtohimtoconfirmthat thestudyhadbeena gift fromPrince
to me and me alone. He didn’t respond well to this assertion.
All these men, some of whom I knew intimately and others I’d
never met, were debating who owned an image of me. I was
considering my options when it occurred to me that my ex,
whom I’d been with for three years, had countless naked pictures
of me on his phone.
I thought about something that had happened a couple of
years prior, when I was 22. I’d been lying next to a pool under
the white Los Angeles sun when a friend sent me a link to a
website called 4chan. Private photos of me—along with those of
hundreds of other women hacked in an iCloud phishing scam—
were expected to leak onto the internet. A post on 4chan had
compiled a list of actresses and models whose nudes would be
published,andmynamewasonit.Thepool’s surfacesparkled
in the sunlight, nearly blinding me as I squinted to scroll through
the list of ten, 20, 50 women’s names until I landed on mine.
There it was, in plain text, the way I’d seen it listed before on
class roll calls: so simple, like it meant nothing.
Later that week, the photos were released to the world. Pictures
meant only for a person who loved me and with whom I’d felt
safe—photos taken out of trust and intimacy—were now being
manically shared and discussed on online forums and rated “hot”
or “not.” Rebecca Solnit wrote recently about the message that
comes with revenge porn: “You thought you were a mind, but2019
The Instagram post
I was sued for sharing.