Scarlett Johansson has warned of another incident “like Princess Diana” after stating that on Monday, she was pursued through Los Angeles by a pack of paparazzi.
Scarlett said she was leaving a studio following an appearance on US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! when a group of photographers spotted her.
The five cars with blacked-out windows ran red lights, she said, and put “other drivers and pedestrians at risk” so they could find out where she and her child were staying.
In a lengthy statement, Scarlett warned it is “a waiting game before another person gets seriously injured or killed, like Princess Diana”.
Accusing the paparazzi of “consistently going to increasingly dangerous lengths to stalk and harass the people they are photographing”, she said: “Even after Princess Diana’s tragic death, the laws were never changed to protect targets from the lawless paparazzi.
“Many paparazzi have criminal pasts and will perform criminal acts to get their shot.”
Midway through the incident, Scarlett’s car stopped at a nearby police station and she added if felt like her “duty as a concerned citizen” to alert the authorities.
According to local reports, the actress did not file any charges and no crime was reported.
Scarlett is calling for paparazzi to be classified as “criminal stalkers by law”.
She said: “Women across the US are stalked, harassed and frightened and a universal law to address stalking must be at the forefront of law enforcement conversations.
“Until paparazzi are considered by the law for the criminal stalkers they are, it’s just a waiting game before another person gets seriously injured or killed, like Princess Diana.”
Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed were killed when the Mercedes they were travelling in crashed in Paris, while they were being pursued by paparazzi.
Their driver, Henri Paul, was also killed and found to have been drunk and driving at high speed.
In the US, celebrity news outlets are protected under the First Amendment, which enshrines into law the freedom of the press.
Different states have their own laws on photographers. In California, it is illegal to take pictures of celebrities’ children in a harassing manner.