Around the same time Jesse Williams was nominated for a Tony for his performance in Broadway’s Take Me Out On Monday night, leaked nudes of him performing in the show went viral on Twitter. 

The former Grey’s Anatomy actor plays Darren Lemming, a gay baseball player who comes out at the peak of his career, in the revival of the 2002 play. Williams and another actor emerge entirely naked in a shower sequence in the programme. According to CNN, Second Stage’s Hayes Theater requires audience members to lock their phones into pouches for the duration of the show “out of respect and support for our actors and in order to create a phone-free space” — meaning that whoever leaked the images presumably violated that policy, and took and shared the photos without Williams’s consent.

The theatre has already issued a statement condemning the policy breach and stating that it is “currently investigating takedown requests.” Second Stage tweeted, “It is terribly regrettable that one audience member chose to insult the performance, their fellow audience members, and, most importantly, the performers in this manner.” “Taking naked images of somebody without their agreement is extremely offensive and can result in serious legal penalties.” The statement called the leak “a gross an unacceptable violation of trust between the actor and audience,” requesting that people cease distribution of the pictures online.

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— Second Stage Theater (@2STNYC) May 10, 2022

While Williams has not yet commented on the leak, he spoke on Watch What Happens Live earlier on Monday about the nude scenes. “Everybody makes such a big deal,” he told host Andy Cohen. “It’s a body. Once you see it, you realize it’s whatever.” Williams had previously told “Page Six” that he was at first “terrified” to appear nude in his stage debut: “But then I noted that that was what I asked God for. I asked to be terrified. I asked to do something that was scary and challenging and made me earn it and made me feel alive and not comfortable.”