I'm not ashamed of topless photos, Diaz tells court

Actress Cameron Diaz told a court she was not ashamed of topless pictures taken early in her career by a photographer who threatened to sell them before the release of one of her films.

She said photographer John Rutter approached her in June 2003, days before the release of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and asked for €2.9m. Diaz said she attempted to strike a partnership with Rutter but he refused. She then realised he was trying to blackmail her.

“I was furious,” said Diaz, testifying yesterday in Rutter’s criminal trial in Los Angeles. “I had never felt so violated.”

Rutter, 42, is charged with attempted grand theft, forgery and perjury. If convicted, he could face up to six years in prison. An extortion charge has been dropped.

Wearing a brown top, grey trousers and black high heels, Diaz, 32, was on the stand for about two hours, giggling about her early modelling career and describing the May 1992 photoshoot in an abandoned warehouse wearing fishnet stockings and leather boots in hopes of appearing in edgy European magazines.

She said she was worried her boyfriend would not like her posing topless, but “I felt that it was a safe environment”.

“It was a professional shoot. It wasn’t like in a back alley ‘take your shirt off’.”

Diaz, who shot to fame in the 1994 movie The Mask, and has since starred in the popular Charlie’s Angels and Shrek films, said she wasn’t paid for the Rutter shoot, which he had described to her as “edgy, circusy”. She said Rutter specialised in photos depicting “the big hair kind of vixen”.

The actress added: “I don’t have any problem with showing my breasts.”

During the June 2003 meeting between her and Rutter, she said the photographer presented a model release form with her signature that had been forged.

“I have never signed my name like that,” she said.

Diaz also testified that Rutter told her he planned to sell the photos to “people who were intentionally trying to hurt me” and that the prospective buyers, some who were willing to pay up to €3.9m, wanted to “portray me as a bad angel”.

Diaz proposed a partnership in which about eight to 10 photos would be released to publications she was comfortable with, or have a gallery shooting. Part of the proceeds would go to charity and to Rutter, she testified.

One of the photos appeared in a French magazine but she was wearing a black bra and vest.

Before Diaz took the stand, her manager Rick Yorn testified about meeting with Rutter, who came to his house and showed him the photos and a video of the shoot, which Yorn described as having a “S&M type of theme”.

“It felt to me, right away, that he was trying to extort money,” Yorn said.

Yorn said that at the time, Diaz was still working on Shrek 2 and doing publicity for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

Rutter’s lawyer Mark Werksman showed Yorn a July 2003 photo spread in the men’s magazine Maxim, in which Diaz posed provocatively with her Charlie’s Angels co-stars. Werksman suggested that the spread was as lurid as the 1992 pictures, but Yorn said “it’s apples and oranges”.

Yorn said Rutter threatened to sell the photos “to publications all over the world. He strongly indicated that we would not want that to happen”.

Yorn said he was “deeply concerned” for the actress’s image because Shrek 2 was aimed at children.

Werksman has portrayed Diaz as an actress ashamed of her past who was able to persuade the district attorney to do her bidding because of her celebrity status.

A judge has issued a permanent injunction banning Rutter from distributing the photos. Diaz has also sued Rutter in civil court. That case is pending.