Taylor Swift has laughed off claims that hackers are in possession of nude photos of her. The pop star reached out to her fans on Twitter, assuring them that none existed. Both the singer's Twitter and Instagram accounts were briefly taken over last week by at least two hackers – one who went by the handle @lizzard and is believed to have ties to the hacking group Lizard Squad. Posts from Taylor's accounts were sent out to her followers, instructing them to follow the hackers' profiles back and pay money in the form of virtual currency bitcoin – approximately £525 – for the photos.
Both Taylor Swift's Twitter and Instagram accounts were hacked last week
Taylor's accounts were suspended and after the problem was resolved and her passwords changed, the Blank Space singer resurfaced with a defiant message on Twitter. "PS any hackers saying they have 'nudes'? Psssh you'd love that wouldn't you! Have fun photoshopping cause you got NOTHING," Taylor announced to her 51.4 million followers, gaining 82,000 'likes' in the process. The petite blonde also gave a nod to her recent tune Shake It Off, which features the line "And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate." "Cause the hackers gonna hack, hack, hack, hack, hack...," she wrote.
At the time, messages sent out by the hackers were removed, but not before they had appeared on Taylor's accounts for a few minutes and were reposted and favourited by some fans. She instead used Tumblr to warn her fans of the problem, writing: "My Twitter got hacked but don't worry, Twitter is deleting the hacker tweets and locking my account until they can figure out how this happened and get me new passwords. Never a dull moment."
Taylor Swift's hackers were asking for approximately £525 for the alleged photos
Taylor, who is only one of four people with more than 50 million followers on Twitter, also publicly thanked her friend Hayley Williams, from rock band Paramore, for the alert. She proclaimed her pal the "MVP", or Most Valuable Player: a term often used in sports to single out the player with the most skill, who contributes the most to a team. "I'd like to acknowledge the MVP of the day, @yelyahwilliams, for being the first to text me about the hack this morning. #FriendshipGoals," she wrote. Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and US President Barack Obama are the other famous names to have more than 50 million followers on Twitter.