SACRAMENTO, Aug. 14 (UPI)–Film stars Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner are fighting for California state legislation to protect their young children from aggressive paparazzi.
“I chose a public life,” E! News said Garner, the wife of actor-director Ben Affleck, told the California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety Tuesday.
“My three children are private citizens,” she said. “I love my kids. They’re beautiful and sweet and innocent, and I don’t want a gang of shouting, arguing, lawbreaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are all day, every day, to continue traumatizing my kids.”
Berry told the committee about when she was in a custody battle with her ex-boyfriend and photographers asked their 5-year-old daughter: “‘How do you feel, Nahla? You may not see your father again. How do you feel about that?’
“They say curse words and call me names, all trying to provoke some sort of response to sell a photograph,” Berry said.
The proposed anti-paparazzi bill would make it a crime for photographers to photograph children without their legal guardian’s permission, E! News said.