I’ve had enough

Please don’t click on links that are publishing paparazzi pics of Milo. Here’s a personal pic instead. pic.twitter.com/wbJX7cchCd

— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) February 17, 2014

There’s a gathering storm in Hollywood and it’s raining on the paparazzi’s parade. I want to hide all their umbrellas … are you with me?

As the Seattle Post reports:

Alyssa Milano has joined pals Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard in calling for fans to boycott any publications that run photos of celebrities’ children by sharing her own personal plea online.

Married stars Bell and Shepard launched a Twitter campaign last month, asking fans to help them protect their baby daughter, Lincoln, from the paparazzi by refusing to purchase magazines that plaster images of stars’ kids all over its pages.

Angry Bell wrote, “I wont do interviews 4 entities that pay photogs to take pics of my baby anymore. I care more about my integrity & my values than my career.

“The ‘look at the celebs kid at the park!’ teaches us a disengaged voyeurism. think abt (about) how being followed by photos all day effects THE KID.’ Now think about how you play the MOST NECESSARY role in the sad chain of events-the consumer. Things won’t change till the consumer does.”

The stars’ efforts come months after Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner successfully managed to campaign for an anti-paparazzi law, which imposes tougher penalties on cameramen who constantly tail public figures and their kids in California, and also makes it easier for parents to sue for damages over harassment. The bill went into effect on 1 January.

But I don’t think we should stop at celebrities’ kids. I’m sick of the paps full stop.

I hate them knocking female stars off their feet, like they did to Nicole Kidman, in their eagerness to get a photograph.

I hate them being violent, like Sheng Li, who is accused of kicking Lara Bingle in the shin in New York (and subsequently being punched by Lara’s boyfriend, Sam Worthington, who was arrested for his actions).

I hate them taunting celebs, as Alec Baldwin recalls in his recent New Yorker article:

A TMZ videographer ambushed me as I was putting my family in a car, and I chased him down the block and said, “Cocksucking motherfucker” or whatever (when I have some volatile interaction with these people, I don’t pull out a pen and take notes on what I said). I knew that guy. This was a guy who is on a bike usually, and when we get in a car, he follows us. Very aggressive. The same guy who followed my wife on a bicycle, and when she slipped and fell trying to dodge him and hurt her leg, he laughed at her and said, “See what I made you do?” At my wife. How would that make you feel?

Yes, I know it’s pretty rich coming from a former editor of a weekly magazine but I can’t help my past. I can only make a promise for my future and it’s one that will never include paparazzi photographs again.

Like Alyssa Milano says – let’s stick to the pics the celebs are happy to share – whether it be on a red carpet or on social media.

I don’t think we should “reward” the celebrities who make movies or TV shows that we love to watch with stalking and intimidation, just so we can gawp at and ridicule them when they are exposed in private moments.

We shouldn’t want to see that.

So let’s stop.