TMZ’s Harvey Levin Defends Posting Leaked Rihanna Picture

Via MTV:

Even as the Los Angeles Police Department conducts an internal investigation into how a picture of a battered Rihanna made its way onto the Internet last week, TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin told Fox News that he obtained the disturbing image legally. 

“It is a photograph of Rihanna that was taken shortly after the alleged beating a couple of weeks ago,” Levin said during an appearance on Greta Van Sustren’s “On The Record” show on Friday, noting that the LAPD essentially confirmed that the photo was real by launching the investigation. “We, obviously, believed at the time, convincingly, that it was Rihanna and put it up on the site. … I’m not saying anything bad at all about the LAPD. I mean, what they needed to do, they felt, was conduct an internal-affairs investigation because they felt there was a leak. In so doing … they did authenticate the picture.”

Levin would not reveal how TMZ obtained the photo, but he said they did not initially believe that it was an image taken by the LAPD. “And we still are still not convinced it is,” he said of the shot, which drew fire from Rihanna’s father and many fans, who called the leak “inappropriate.”

In launching an investigation into the leak of the photo — which appears to have been taken following the alleged altercation between Rihanna and her boyfriend, Chris Brown, on February 8 — the LAPD said the image “has the appearance of one taken during an official domestic-violence investigation.”

“At the request of the authorities, Rihanna is not commenting about the incident involving Chris Brown,” her representatives said in a statement. “She wants to assure her fans that she remains strong, is doing well, and deeply appreciates the outpouring of support she has received during this difficult time.”

Following the bombshell posting of the post-altercation photo, TMZ also put up an image over the weekend of the singer getting out of a car in Los Angeles on Thursday, one of the first pictures of Rihanna in public since Grammy weekend.

Levin defended the posting of the Rihanna picture, saying that it presents both sides of the story on the alleged incident, which has brought the issue of domestic abuse into the spotlight.

“Chris Brown is not going to just say, ‘I’m going to lie down on this one and not fight,’ ” Levin said of the 19-year-old singer, who issued a statement on February 15 saying he was “sorry and saddened” over the incident. “I guarantee you that Chris Brown is going to mount a defense in this case. I know that. He will mount a defense in this case. So, the picture is not the be-all and the end-all, as far as he’s concerned. … But what it does do is it puts a face on what both sides really have been kind of leaking out over the last couple of weeks. … Well, the bottom line is, here’s the photograph, here’s the end result. And frankly, Greta, I think it’s pretty horrifying.”

Mediaoutrage- We have plenty of compassion for Rihanna and her family being that the picture has been plastered by almost everyone. We just sit back with the raised eye brows at the people who are crying foul despite the fact that everything in them wanted to see the picture. After seeing how disturbing it truly is then they decided that this was unethical and wrong. Money talks. $62,500 talks in any economy. These same outraged media outlets would have killed everybody in they family to get their hands on that picture and post it first which in effect would have driven millions of visitors to their site. They’re just mad it wasn’t them.

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