Tulisa has said it took her “many years” to come to terms with her sex tape leak.
The 36-year-old celebrity, who was a judge on X Factor at the time, claimed that it has taken her “many years” to accept and move on.
In 2012, at the height of her fame, her ex-boyfriend Justin Edwards, with whom she had broken up in 2009, released a sex tape of her without her consent.
The popular ITV show featured the N-Dubz singer as one of its judges, but she felt “judged, disgusted, and ashamed” when she returned for the new series.
The star confessed, “honestly, there’s no words to describe,” the impact it had on her return.
“It felt like virtual rape, that’s the only way I can describe the emotion. It was just horrific. I felt so just judged and I felt disgusting, I felt ashamed.”
Picture Shows: Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger, Tulisa and Louis Walsh
“It just felt horrible, there’s no word to describe. It’s taken me many, many years to come to terms with it. Now, for me, all pain is growth,” she admitted.
“So, every single part of my experiences I was meant to feel and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without them.”
“So there is no regret on anything, that is my path. I was meant to live it and I have.”
“I just became miserable by the end of that second year, and I wasn’t going to do the show again,” she stated of her remaining time on the show.
“I just hated it, I hated it every day. Like I said, it’s taken me years, I didn’t even know how long I would need to process it.”
“It’s affected my relationships to this day and intimacy and all those kinds of things – it’s life changing in a big, big way.”
She only succeeded in getting him to apologise in court because revenge porn was not illegal at the time.
When discussing the fallout from its release on Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right podcast, she stated: “I was aware of it.”
“In series one, I’d been told that my ex had a tape and that it was coming out,” she stated.
“So, I was just living in constant fear and went to one of the producers and I was like, ‘apparently my ex has this tape and he’s going to release it. I don’t know what to do.’”
“And she was just like, ‘we’re just going to have to take it as it comes.’”
Her ex released the tape between her first and second series as a judge on X Factor.
Tulisa claimed to have heard that her ex-boyfriend received a house following the release of the tape.
“No,” she added when asked if there were any consequences for him.
“I mean, I sued him down the line, but I think he just got to the point where he’s like, I’m not spending this money.”
“Because at the time I had money to spend, so I was like, I’m just going to keep suing your a**e. And then eventually he just wrote an apology.”
She said that Justin had denied releasing it and had attempted to implicate her in the tape’s creation.
“He tried to say that either it was me or I was involved – something crazy like that.” she said.
“So he just basically admitted it was him, that was it. But there were no repercussions.”
Since the revenge porn legislation didn’t take effect until 2014, Justin couldn’t be charged for it.
Regarding the illegality of distributing graphic photographs, Tulisa stated: “It is now. It just wasn’t then, it’s mental.”
After Justin acknowledged he was the one who released the sex footage that surfaced online and promised to apologise, Tulisa resolved her lawsuit against him in 2012.