In early August 2026, Julian Newman — the former child basketball prodigy from Orlando who went viral at age 10 — posted a response to allegations that an intimate video of his younger sister, Jaden Newman, had been leaked without her consent. He called the situation ‘unfortunate.’ He also said Jaden would be ‘bigger than Kim K’ because of it. That second part is what the internet remembered — and it opened a much larger conversation about privacy violations, federal law, and what we expect from the people closest to a victim.
From Viral Kids to This Moment
If you were online in the early 2010s, you know the Newman name. Julian Newman, born September 6, 2001, was playing varsity basketball at Downey Christian School in Orlando before most kids his age could drive. He appeared on Ellen, on Good Morning America, in highlight reels that racked up millions of views. His younger sister Jaden, born June 13, 2004, followed a similar path — she once beat Stephen Curry in a three-point contest in 2015, graduated high school in 2022, and currently plays guard for the Cal State Los Angeles Golden Eagles. Both siblings built their public profiles through the family reality series Hello Newmans and a combined following that runs into the millions. They grew up entirely online. Which means when something goes wrong, it goes wrong in front of everyone — as we’re seeing now.
In late July and early August 2026, alleged intimate videos of Jaden circulated online. Jaden addressed the situation in a livestream, saying she had been hacked — a claim that has not been independently verified. On [[LINK_INLINE: August 6, Julian posted his own video response | Julian Newman basketball prodigy], saying he was exhausted by people dragging the situation into his comment sections. The following day, TMZ covered a separate clip in which Julian described the incident as ‘unfortunate,’ insisted it was not Jaden’s fault, and suggested the attention would make her ‘bigger than Kim K.’ That framing — casting a privacy violation as a potential career launchpad — drew immediate, widespread criticism.
The ‘Kim K’ Comment and Why It Hit Differently
To be clear about what Julian actually said: he called the leak ‘unfortunate,’ stated he hadn’t watched the content, and defended his sister’s character. The ‘bigger than Kim K’ remark came in the same breath — and that’s the part that spread. Critics pointed out that framing nonconsensual intimate imagery as a brand-building event, even unintentionally, echoes a narrative that has been condemned by digital rights advocates and victim support organizations for years. The argument that notoriety from a leak ‘worked out’ for someone else doesn’t make the violation less real for the person experiencing it now.
The backlash matters not just as a celebrity story but as a cultural signal. Julian Newman is 24 years old, the brother of the person most directly harmed, and he still reached for a framing that centers visibility over violation. That’s not an isolated failure of judgment — it reflects how deeply the ‘any press is good press’ logic has been absorbed, even by people who genuinely care about the person at the center of it.
The Law Exists — But There Are Gaps
The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed by President Trump on May 19, 2025, was designed precisely for situations like this. It criminalizes the publication of nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) and requires covered platforms to remove flagged content within 48 hours of a valid request. Its civil enforcement regime, overseen by the FTC, became fully operative on May 19, 2026 — just months before the Newman incident surfaced. On paper, Jaden’s situation is exactly the kind the law was built to address.
But the law has a significant gap: dedicated leak sites, offshore platforms, and private messaging apps fall largely outside its practical reach. The 48-hour window only applies to ‘covered platforms’ under the statute’s definition — meaning the content that matters most to victims, the versions that refuse to come down and keep circulating, may exist entirely beyond what the FTC can touch. Legal analysts covering the case have described Jaden Newman’s situation as a real-world stress test for the Act, and the early read is that the law works where platforms already cooperate and struggles everywhere else. For victims navigating this in real time, that distinction is not a footnote.
- how the TAKE IT DOWN Act protects victims
