Blake Lively Leaked Her Own Photos for Publicity

This week, fans got to see a side of “Gossip Girl” star Blake Lively that they probably didn’t believe they’d ever see, as a series of personal photos of the actress leaked. While her rep continues to deny that the pics are really of Blake, Joe Francis proposes a very interesting theory about the leak.

The “Girls Gone Wild” creator, not a stranger to the inner workings of the Hollywood star-making machine, believes Blake is the one behind the leak, even though he doesn’t claim to have proof for his claims.

Even so, he’s telling the media that Blake leaked her own pics because she needs media attention: “Green Lantern,” her biggest film to date, arrives in theaters in two weeks’ time.

“I would say 90 percent it’s an orchestrated attempt or act on her part [to raise her profile],” Francis says in a new interview cited by Gawker.

Francis points to other female stars who have built a very successful career after a similar scandal, including his former friend Paris Hilton and her former best friend Kim Kardashian.

“Look, mainstream USA, other than the five people that watch Gossip Girl have never heard of Blake Lively,” Francis explains.

As Gawker puts it, stranger things have happened in Hollywood. The theory that Blake would do something like this to get her name out there ahead of her big movie premiere doesn’t seem that farfetched.

On the other hand, Francis doesn’t have a shred of evidence that Blake is the person behind the leak. As a matter of fact, her publicist is yet to admit that that’s her in the photos.

Then, there’s also the question of whether Blake would actually need this kind of publicity, assuming that what Francis is saying is right, the publication goes on to argue.

Blake has always been a favorite with the media and, right now, she’s the fashion industry darling, thanks to a very lucrative contract with Chanel.

Besides getting the lead female role in “Green Lantern,” she’s also dating Leonardo DiCaprio now, so whether she needed more media attention than this is highly debatable.

So far, Lively has kept mum on the topic of the leak, save for the statement from her publicist denying that it was her in the photos.