Model Pleads Not Guilty to Locker Room Body-Shaming

Alleged locker room body-shamer Dani Mathers, whose own body made her the 2015 Playboy Playmate of the Year, pleaded not guilty to invasion-of-privacy charges on Monday, according to Us magazine and her attorney Thomas Mesereau.

The Los Angeles Times says Mathers, 29, faces a misdemeanor count of invasion of privacy for secretly snapping and Snapchatting a photo of a woman changing at an LA Fitness club in July.

Her snarky comment: "If I can't unsee this then you can't either."

The woman pictured was 70 years old.

Instead of shaming her, people should have lauded her for dragging her 70-year-old behind to the gym.

Mathers later issued an apology, insisting that she only meant to send the photo to a friend-which makes her less of a public jerk and more of a private one.

"I know that body-shaming is wrong," her statement read. "That is not the type of person I am."

Mesereau said outside court that although Mathers regrets her actions, she didn't do anything illegal.

"She never tried to invade anyone's privacy and never tried to violate any laws," Mesereau said, per the Los Angeles Times.

Tattle, who is not a lawyer, believes that in a woman's locker room, a naked woman might have some expectation of privacy, perhaps not from other naked women in the same room, but of other, non-naked people elsewhere.

If the dorky guy who works the gym's towel counter had taken the photo with a hidden camera and Snapchatted it, he'd be going to jail.

The Los Angeles City Attorney's office thought Mathers committed a crime and charged her with a misdemeanor on Nov. 4. It's an unusual charge, as neither Mathers nor her camera were hiding, and the photo and accompanying commentary were more for the purpose of ridicule than sexual gratification.

Should that matter? The woman in question didn't agree to have her picture taken and didn't know her picture had been taken. Had she known, we think it's safe to say she probably wouldn't have wanted the photo to end up on the Internet.

Now, if Mathers' caption for it had read, "Look at this 70-year-old badass kicking my butt at the gym," this story would not be leading the column, nor would Mathers have ended up in court. But secretly snapping a nudie, sending it out and then mocking it is a problem. Maybe it shouldn't land you in jail, but it should land you somewhere others can revel in your public humiliation.

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.

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215-854-5678 @DNTattle

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