British ITV’s Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit, tells the story of reality TV star Georgia Harrison‘s 2023 court case accusing another reality TV star whom she briefly dated, Stephen Bear, of releasing sexually explicit video online without her consent. Here’s a closer look at what Bear did and Harrison and Bear’s relationship.
Harrison and Bear are familiar faces in Great Britain, but perhaps less well-known to reality TV fans in the United States. Harrison, now 30, starred in British reality shows like The Only Way is Essex and Love Island, while Bear, 35, made his name in reality TV competition series like Celebrity Big Brother, which he won in 2016. In 2022, Bear was convicted of sharing sexually explicit Harrison content online, sentenced to 21 months in prison, and ordered to pay a fine. Bear was released in January 2024.
A short-lived relationship; huge legal consequences
According to The New Feminist, Bear and Harrison met in 2018 while filming The Challenge, a British reality TV series, and dated for only about a month. Bear was already a “bad boy” of British reality TV, fighting with Heavy D in his 2016 Celebrity Big Brother season. He also made tabloid headlines for dating Chloe Khan from X Factor. Bear’s dating history is otherwise a who’s who of British reality TV stars.
After Bear and Harrison split the first time, Metro says the couple tried to patch things up, including on a 2019 trip to Thailand, but things remained rocky. In 2020, Bear and Harrison reportedly met up and had drinks and found themselves back at Bear’s house, where they had sex in his garden. At that time, Harrison was unaware that Bear had recorded the encounter on CCTV footage, and when Bear told Harrison what he’d done, she told him never to show anyone else.
A WhatsApp text and OnlyFans post
As court records show, Bear didn’t listen to Harrison’s request. That same night, Bear sent the footage in a WhatsApp text to a friend and later uploaded or had someone else upload the video to OnlyFans, where, according to Harrison, Bear financially benefitted when his followers viewed it. The explicit footage went viral, and Harrison contacted the police. Bear was arrested the next year, 2021, charged with disclosing private sexual images without consent and voyeurism, and his subsequent trial dominated tabloid headlines in the U.K.
Bear showed no remorse throughout the trial, denying the charges and claiming he destroyed the footage when Harrison asked him to. The British court disagreed, and Bear was found guilty. “I have felt ashamed, hurt, violated, even broken at times,” Harrison said, referring to the outcome of the case, “but today I stand here feeling empowered, grateful, and a huge sense of unity with all of those who have reached out to support me throughout this ordeal.”
Harrison tells her story
Georgia Harrison shares her story of becoming a victim of revenge porn and how this has affected her life.
— ITV (@ITV) March 20, 2023
Georgia vs. Bear: Revenge Porn, tonight at 10pm on ITV2 and @ITVX. pic.twitter.com/bSS0kU1IFu
The Bear-Harrison court case has been the subject of several documentaries, including ITV2’s Georgia vs. Bear: Revenge Porn, released in 2023, and more recently, Georgia Harrison: Porn, Power, Profit, a two-part series Harrison produced. In both series, Harrison tells her story, but she also speaks with other victims of similar abuse and explores recent changes in British law addressing the problem, brought about in part by her court case.
Referring to her Bear ordeal, Harrison says in the show she still “struggles,” knowing the Bear footage is online. “I have a lot of people messaging me all the time, sending me clips of it,” Harrison said. “It’s always something in the back of my mind, but having to really face head on exactly where it is and how many places it’s in was a real struggle for me. I have so much faith that eventually we will live in a world where unconsented imagery is far harder to share, especially on the normal web,” she added.
Published: Feb 11, 2025 02:03 pm