Bruce Jenner threatens legal action over ‘illegally obtained’ dress photos

Bruce Jenner has threatened to sue the New York Daily News after it published a grainy photo of him wearing a dress.

The photo also appeared in a segment on CNN.

The former Olympian, who revealed last Friday that he identifies as a woman, was photographed at his home in Malibu clad in a striped maxi dress while holding a cigarette. The photo appeared on the cover of the April 22 issue of the tabloid, just two days before his highly touted ABC interview with Diane Sawyer.

Jenner, 65, alleged that the images in the newspaper and on CNN, which were distributed by the photo agency X-17, violated his privacy because they were taken from a great distance with a telephoto lens.

“Both Daily News and CNN pulled the photos sold to them by X-17, once they found out they were illegally obtained,” Jenner’s rep Alan Nierob said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

The photo agency stopped selling the photos “once they confirmed they were shot illegally,” he added.

The photo has also been scrubbed from the Daily News’ site, but thanks to the indelible nature of the Internet, images of the tabloid cover are still readily available online.

“We removed the pictures from our digital platforms after we became aware of new information in relation to the circumstances of how -- and where -- they were taken,” a spokeswoman for the Daily News said in an email to The Times on Tuesday.

In California, use of a telephoto lens to capture images of personal or familial activity is a violation of privacy laws.

“The photos were clearly unlawfully taken from a very long distance using an enhancement device. Bruce Jenner is going to enforce his right to privacy,” Jenner’s attorney Marty Singer told Page Six, which first reported news of Jenner’s reaction.

Singer did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

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