Click here to enlarge the cover.

“I was just so afraid. I didn’t know how this would affect my career.”

That’s just the beginning of what Jennifer Lawrence has to say about her stolen-photos saga in the cover story of Vanity Fair’s November issue, the digital edition of which will be available Wednesday, October 8, and which hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Thursday, October 9.

READ MORE: the full story is available October 8 in the digital editions. Subscribe now for access. The magazine will be on national newsstands on October 14.

Lawrence originally met with V.F. contributing editor Sam Kashner on August 13. News broke that hackers had stolen personal photos of her and posted them online on August 31—two weeks after the interview and a month after her July 29 cover shoot with Patrick Demarchelier. So Kashner followed up with Lawrence’s team in hopes of giving the actress “a chance to have the last word.”

“I could just sense after having spent a little time with her that she would come out swinging,” Kashner tells VF.com.

The 24-year-old actress had not previously commented on the incident, but she spoke to Kashner at length about the anger she felt. “Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she says. “It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world. ”

She had been tempted to write a statement when news of the privacy violation broke, she says, but “every single thing that I tried to write made me cry or get angry. I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

Lawrence also addresses the legal ramifications of the hack. “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime,” she tells Kashner. “It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it. It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

Jennifer Lawrence Poses for Vanity Fair



1 / 6 Chevron Chevron BIRDS OF PARADISE Jennifer Lawrence in Beverly Hills with a sulphur-crested cockatoo. “You expect paparazzi to be annoying,” she says. “You don’t expect them to be terrifying.”

In the cover story, the Hunger Games star vents her frustration not just with the offending hackers but also with those—including people she knows—who viewed the images online. “Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”