LAUREN: I’M A DEEPFAKE PORN VICTIM
Chvrches star hits out at trolls Scots singer reveals her shock after face used in X-rated online videos
SCOTS singer Lauren Mayberry has spoken about her disgust after discovering her face had been used in deepfake online porn.
The Chvrches frontwoman was horrified to find sickos had used AI to put her image into X-rated films.
It came after the 36-year-old was sent online rape threats and abuse by trolls following the release of track Leave A Trace from the band’s second album.
One person even offered to hand her a gun if she thought she could not handle the backlash.
In 2019 she received rape and death threats after expressing disappointment in EDM star Marshmello’s decision to work with Chris Brown and Tyga.
Brown, who had admitted assaulting his then girlfriend Rihanna, called the band a “bunch of losers”.
Mayberry has now spoken out about the abuse she has received since Chvrches burst on to the scene a decade ago, as part of BBC Radio 6 Music’s Change The Tune campaign to raise awareness of the impact of online abuse.
She said of the deepfake porn: “It just felt like another version of the same thing, if that makes sense. It’s like a decade of intermittently receiving rape or death threats on the internet.
“Even though people say, ‘It’s not real, it’s not real,’ your brain does not perceive that, I don’t think. The impact of it on your psychology, it doesn’t really matter whether you think that’s real.”
She also told how at the start of her career “a lot of men” wanted to tell her she was “sexually desirable”.
Mayberry, from Stirling, added: “It’s all very sexual and sexualised all the time. “I look at that and I’m like, I was a 23-year-old girl, trying to do my job, just to write some silly songs.”
Mayberry, who is about to begin a solo career, has also made a film about her experiences of online abuse and misogyny in the music industry.
People say it’s not real but your brain does not agree Lauren Mayberry on deepfaked videos