Former Democratic candidate and media pundit Krystal Ball defended herself after conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh claimed she posed nude in photos when she was 14 years old.
Ball, a former MSNBC contributor, issued the rebuke via social media Thursday morning, tweeting, “So I have some sort of weird personal/public news. The other day on his show, Rush Limbaugh went on at length about how I posed nude when I was 14 or 15 (I did not.) I’ve been thinking for a few days about how to deal with this. Partly I didn’t really want to call more attention.”
Maybe just ignore it and move on. But the reality is, his show has millions of listeners and the transcript is readily available online. I didn’t want this slut-shaming smear just hanging out there. I’m also lucky enough to have a platform to set the record straight.
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) September 12, 2019
“Maybe just ignore it and move on. But the reality is, his show has millions of listeners and the transcript is readily available online. I didn’t want this slut-shaming smear just hanging out there. I’m also lucky enough to have a platform to set the record straight,” she continued. “But maybe the next person who gets smeared will not. I didn’t want him to think he could just slime anyone with impunity. Most importantly though, if I did ‘pose nude’ at 14, so fucking what? Should women be barred from public service because they have bodies and sexuality?”
When she was a Virginia congressional candidate in 2010, photos leaked of Ball at a party six years earlier, when she was about 22, clad in a “sexy Santa” outfit leading her then-husband, who had a dildo on his nose and was dressed as a reindeer on a leash. In one photo, since deleted from the internet, she was sucking the dildo. Ball lost her congressional race, which was in a solid Republican district, but used her new prominence to become a successful TV pundit.
Ball also read a copy of Limbaugh’s transcript about herself during the episode.
He said in part, “Remember the name Krystal Ball with a K? Some thought she was attractive. She was running for Congress, and she got elected, and some tweets came out. She posed nude when she [was] 14 or 15. She was outraged. ‘How dare you!’ I said, ‘What do you expect to happen? You put a picture of yourself nude on Facebook or MySpace, or you know, My Butt, whatever it is.”
Ball acknowledged that Limbaugh was probably referring to a 2010 photo that leaked of her at a party, but she was not nude in it and it happened after she had completed college, not when she was a minor.
A number of people criticized Limbaugh’s attack.
When will women stop being subjected to this kind of abuse from left over relics of 90’s media? We all support you @krystalball – I’m so sorry you even have to address these slanderous lies. https://t.co/M5dQzWz053
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) September 12, 2019
Read this whole thread from @krystalball. I want to lift this up because not only has #RushLbaugh lied…once again…just stop shaming women, especially young women and girls if they do choose to show themselves. Their full selves. #Shame on the shamers. https://t.co/IEkjDKkZpD
— Maya Wiley (@mayawiley) September 12, 2019
This is so gross.
Earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh lied on his radio program and said that @krystalball posed for nude photos when she was 14 or 15.
Watch her respond to him. So glad you’re doing this Krystal and glad to see you have the support of @esaagar pic.twitter.com/lcF6YB9dsi
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 12, 2019
UPDATE: Limbaugh addressed the inaccuracy in his statements about Ball during his show on Thursday, saying that his previous statement “wasn’t quite true.”
“I honestly thought it was — ’cause I remember she got very upset that these pictures — she was very mad, and I remember, ‘Well, what do you expect? You know, you go on social media, you do whatever, somebody’s gonna find it and it’s gonna surface.’ It turns out they were party photos, whatever it was, she was upset about it,” Limbaugh added. “So we’ve cleared the record. It wasn’t a nude photo, it was party photos. But whatever it was, she was not happy about it, she felt her privacy had been invaded. And my point was there isn’t any privacy on social media, particularly if you run or office, people are gonna dig into it.”
He then proceeded to rail against Ball for her argument that he was trying to “shame me or any other young woman who is out there who may have nudes photos that come out.”
“So, you didn’t pose nude, but even if you had, so what? ‘Who freaking cares? [laughing] It’s not your job to be the moral police.’ I wasn’t moralizing. I was simply talking about what people who engage in social media who desperately want to be famous, you’re gonna get it,” Limbaugh concluded.
Ball has not responded to a request for comment about Limbaugh’s latest remarks.
