Emily Ratajkowski announced on her Twitter account and on IG that she is selling, at a Christie’s auction on May 14, 2021, her first NFT, titled “Buying Myself Back: A Model for Redistribution.” The title alludes to past controversies in which men have appropriated her physical image in photographs.
In 2014, the famed appropriation artist Richard Prince copied a photograph she posted on Instagram and sold it as a large print for $90,000 without her permission. Ratajkowsk tried to buy the print, but a collector had already purchased it. She and her then boyfriend bought a second large print of a different image that Prince had appropriated from her Instagram account.
Ratajkowski wrote a lengthy essay in The Cut describing how her physical image has been appropriated not just by Prince, but also by photographers. (The most disturbing account Ratajkowski alleges is Jonathan Leder‘s publishing of a book of nude Polaroids he took of her when she was 17 years old; after the shoot, he allegedly penetrated her with his fingers. The NYT has more. Leder denied the allegation.)
Ratajkowski’s NFT reportedly will be another image of her in front of the second photo of her that Richard Prince appropriated.
