Yahoo Finance Audrina Patridge Admits to Feeling 'Shameful' over Topless Photos: 'I Didn't Know to Protect Myself'
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Audrina Patridge is opening up about topless photos she felt "pressured" to take when she was still a Hollywood hopeful.
"I was kind of guided and peer-pressured in certain situations that I wish I could say, 'No,' and be strong with my 'No' and not fall into peer pressure with, you know, topless photos," The Hills alum, 37, explained on a recent episode of Nick Viall's The Viall Files podcast.
Noting that it was "devastating" when the photographs were first published, Patridge said she trusted the photographer who took the pics, but continued, "People [spun] it into a judgmental, negative way, and then it makes you feel shameful and bad about yourself."
Added Patridge, "Navigating your early 20s and teens is hard, and those choices you do sometimes have to live with. You learn from them, but then you can teach other people from what you've been through."
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Patridge's topless photos first surfaced online back in 2008. At the time, the star issued a statement to TMZ.
"I took these photos years ago, when I was just out of high school and beginning to model," she said at the time, according to MTV News. "I was young and very trusting of others, and I didn't know to protect myself. It is a lesson learned, for myself, and hopefully for the young girls who look up to me."
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While on Viall's podcast, Patridge also spoke about how advice from her Hills costar Justin Bobby Brescia made her feel better about the entire ordeal.
"[He] was like, 'Who cares? They're boobs. Everybody has boobs," she told Viall, 41. "Stop freaking out about it.'"
She added, "For me, I had to put things in perspective where it was like, 'Alright, who cares?'"
