Nicholas Hoult on Jennifer Lawrence’s nude photo leak: ‘It’s a shame’

The worst part of a breakup may be people asking you about your former flame after the fact -- especially when they do it on television.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Nicholas Hoult got a dose of that this week when a TV host brought up his ex Jennifer Lawrence and those leaked nude pictures she presumably took for her long-distance beau.

The 24-year-old actor was on Fox’s “Good Day New York” on Thursday to promote his upcoming film “Young Ones” when anchor Rosanna Scotto awkwardly brought up the massive celebrity nude photo hack that counted Lawrence, Kate Upton and Vanessa Hudgens among its victims.

“Speaking of friends,” she said, “Jennifer Lawrence, she’s been making a lot of news lately because of those pictures that have been hacked. And I think they might have been pictures that were sent to you. I was just wondering if you wanted to have any comment at all. I know that she’s talked about the people who downloaded them were basically sex offenders. I was wondering how you felt about that.”

“It’s shocking that things like that happen in the world,” the British star said diplomatically. “It’s a shame.”

“Yeah,” added his “Young Ones” director Jake Paltrow, who is the younger brother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow. (To make things more complex, Lawrence has recently been linked to Gwyneth’s ex, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.)

Earlier this week, Vanity Fair published an interview with Oscar winner Lawrence in which she addressed the photos, explained why they were taken and shared how she felt when they were made public online.

“I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for,” the 24-year-old actress said in an addendum to the cover-story interview. “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.”

She was presumably referring to her on-and-off relationship with her London-based “X-Men” costar. The pair reportedly had a “very amicable” breakup at the end of the summer.

In August, reports surfaced that Lawrence might be seeing Martin.

What’s a guy supposed to say? Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.