Charlotte Laws


Charlotte Anne Laws is an American author, talk show host, community activist, animal rights advocate, anti-revenge porn activist, former Los Angeles politician, and actress under the stage name Missy Laws.
Laws is currently a BBC News contributor and was a weekly commentator on the NBC television show The Filter with Fred Roggin from August 2009 until 2013 when the show went off the air. One of her episodes was nominated for an Emmy.
Laws was also a co-host on the Internet show Every Way Woman from 2008 - December 2013, and she hosted her own Los Angeles TV show called Uncommon Sense from October 2007 until September 2010. Laws and her guests discussed news and current events.
Laws is a former member of the Greater Valley Glen Council in Valley Glen, California. She was termed out of office in 2012, after serving four two-year terms. She was the first politician to run on the platform that she represents all beings in her district, not just the humans whom she maintains are the elite. She promotes moving from a democracy to what she calls an omniocracy, a government with representation for all living beings.
In May 2006, Laws was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to serve on the city's 912 Commission, which was also called the Neighborhood Council Review Commission. In 1999, the Los Angeles City Charter mandated that a commission would be formed seven years later to review the progress, successes and failures of the city's Neighborhood Council system.
Laws is the founder and president of two organizations: the Directors of Animal Welfare and the League for Earth and Animal Protection. In 2006, Laws was the recipient of the Los Angeles Animal Humanitarian Award. Laws is a vegan and an advocate of that diet.

Biography

Education

After completing high school at The Lovett School in Atlanta, Georgia, Laws attended the University of Florida in Gainesville and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and completed bachelor's degrees in Theatre and Philosophy at California State University, Northridge. She earned two master's degrees from the University of Southern California in Professional Writing and in Social Ethics, as well as a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from the University of Southern California. In 2003, she completed post-doctoral coursework at Oxford University, England.

Acting and writing career

Laws studied acting at the Academy Theatre of Atlanta, Joe Bernard's Acting Studio in Las Vegas and the Estelle Harman Actors Workshop in Los Angeles. She worked as a model and actress in movies and television until her late 20s. She has performed as a stand up comic at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
In 1988, Laws authored the best-selling book Meet the Stars, which details how the average person can succeed in the entertainment industry. She promoted the book on Larry King Live, Oprah Winfrey, The Late Show and over a hundred radio and television shows throughout America and Canada.
From 1997–2000, Laws wrote for the British magazine Mad Dogs and Englishmen and since then has become a syndicated columnist. Her articles on current events, politics, philosophy and social issues have been published in the "Los Angeles Daily News," "E the Environmental Magazine," "The Huffington Post," "Opinion Editorials," "LA Times," Jezebel, "Gawker," "Newsweek," "Salon " and "The Washington Post."
On April 11, 2015, Laws' memoir titled Rebel in High Heels came on the market. The book details her fight against revenge porn and the first 22 years of her life.
Her book, "Devil in the Basement" was released on March 14, 2018. This nonfiction novel is about Laws' grandfather who was murdered by devil worshiper Ernie Yost in 1948. The book also spotlights the rampant prejudice directed at Italian Americans in the early twentieth century. The Associated Press ran a feature article about the book in January 2018, which appeared in newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Times, and the Chicago Tribune
On August 15, 2019, Laws's second memoir, "Undercover Debutante: The Search for My Birth Parents and a Bald Husband," was published. The book won a Publisher's Weekly book award and covers Laws's life from age 22 until 39 just after she rejects her adoptive father's bribe of $500,000 to remain in Atlanta and instead moves to Los Angeles almost broke. This humor-filled book explains how the author tracked down her birth family and found a husband after a number of disastrous boyfriends. It also includes some of the author's celebrity escapades; there are stories about Ben Affleck, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Milton Berle, James Brown, Bill Cosby, Governor Jerry Brown, Liberace, Julio Iglesias, and Tony Bennett, among others.
Laws made Buzzfeed's list of the 30 fiercest women of 2013. and Brainwreck's list of 20 women who changed the world in 2013.
Laws plays Human #46 on the 2020 Netflix series, "100 Humans."

Activism against revenge porn

In January 2012, after an unreleased topless photo of Laws' daughter, Kayla, was posted on the revenge porn website, Is Anyone Up?, Laws began an investigation of Hunter Moore, who ran the site. She also contacted the FBI, who launched their own investigation of Moore and his website. Laws determined a large number of the photos on the site had been hacked. She contacted dozens of victims and became known as the "Erin Brockovich of revenge porn." Laws appeared on Nightline, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, TMZ on TV, Fox News and the Dr. Drew to discuss the issue. Laws detailed her revenge porn battle in the online publication, Jezebel, and the article received over 1.2 million page views. Her experiences were further detailed in her book, Rebel in High Heels, which was released in April 2015.
Moore removed his website in the midst of the FBI investigation, but announced on November 28, 2012, that he would start a new site that would include address information. This prompted Laws to make Moore's home address public on Twitter, and Moore threatened to ruin her life. She soon received death threats, computer viruses, and a stalker appeared at her home. Internet hackers professing to be affiliated with Anonymous came to her aid, hacking into his servers and posting his personal information on the Internet.
The FBI arrested Hunter Moore and his hacker, Charles Evens of Studio City, California, who went under the alias of "Gary Jones", on January 23, 2014. On February 18, 2015, it was announced that Moore would plead guilty to federal computer hacking and identity theft charges. He faced up to 7 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. However, in the end, he got two and a half years in federal prison.
With no plea deal in place and facing 42 years in prison, Moore's hacker, Charlie Evens, confessed his crimes to CNN on tape at Laws' house. The taped confession aired on April 27, 2015. In the end, Evens got 26 months in federal prison.
On June 4, 2013, Laws gave testimony before the California State Senate in favor of SB 255, a law designed to protect victims from revenge porn or "cyber rape," a term Laws coined. The bill was sponsored by State Senator Anthony Cannella of Modesto, CA and it was signed into law on October 1, 2013, making California the second state to pass a law designed to help victims of nonconsensual pornography. Until 2018, Laws was a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, an organization dedicated to helping victims of online harassment. Since 2012, Laws has been meeting with state and federal legislators, urging them to pass laws to protect victims. Today, 46 states and Washington D.C. have anti-revenge porn laws, and Rep Jackie Speier introduced a federal bill in July 2016 called the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, but nothing happened with it. Then in 2017, Speier and several other legislators, introduced the Ending Nonconsensual Online User Graphic Harassment Act., Nothing happened with this. Then, a federal bill called The SHIELD Act was introduced in 2019.
In addition to pushing for a federal anti-revenge porn law, Laws has recently been tackling the problem of deep fake pornography and sextortion. She claims to have assisted over 500 victims of nonconsensual pornography, morphed porn and sextortion since the inception of her activism in 2012.

Political Commentator

Charlotte Laws is a political analyst and has worked as a BBC News contributor since 2015. She has also made appearances on the Al Jazeera network, and she participated in a Reddit AMA in September 2015 with Rick Wilson.
Laws was the first person to publicly discuss “hidden Trump supporters” and to call Trump a feminist and a pacifist. Some of her controversial articles about Trump and politics have appeared in The Huffington Post, CityWatch, and The Daily Caller. She stated in 2019 on BBC television and Twitter that she is supporting Cory Booker and Tulsi Gabbard for the 2020 election.

Bill Cosby scandal

On November 30, 2014, Laws spoke out about her "34-year-old Bill Cosby secret." In a Salon article, she detailed her experiences with Mr. Cosby and a friend she calls "Sandy." Laws claims that Mr. Cosby drugged "Sandy" in 1981 and had sex with her. Laws was interviewed on the Dr. Drew Show on December 1, 2014 about this issue. In a Fox News interview, Laws pondered whether Cosby has somnophilia.

Gay rights activism

In March 2015, Laws came to defend the LGBTQ communities when a Southern California attorney proposed a statewide ballot initiative that permitted the execution of gays by "bullets to the head or any other convenient method." He called it the Sodomite Suppression Act. In response to what is widely seen as a vicious and repugnant attack on LGBTQ people, a traditionally oppressed minority, Laws registered a rebuttal initiative with the Attorney General's office, "The Intolerant Jackass Act". Laws’ proposal called for sensitivity training and a steep fine for anyone submitting a state initiative related to the killing of gays. In June 2015, the initiative was cleared to move forward, but Laws said that she did not plan to gather signatures, adding "I'm glad my proposal made an impact. My intent was to send a message and support gay rights. has served its purpose."

Party crashing

Laws was voted the fourth most notorious party crasher in the world, beating Bill Murray, Queen Elizabeth II, Serena Williams, Lady Gaga, and the Salahis. She says gate crashing began as a hobby when she was a teenager, but later became a creative way to get face time with business leaders, politicians, and A-list celebrities in order to lobby for legislation, get exclusive interviews, and obtain business partners. She has crashed the Secret Service four times and calls some of her schemes the “Fake Out to Get In” ploy, the “Glitz Blitz,” and the “Celebrity Snuggle Up.”
Laws’ 1988 how-to book, Meet the Stars, is believed to be the first party crashing book ever written. Laws also includes some of her gatecrashing techniques in her memoirs: Rebel in High Heels and Undercover Debutante.

Personal life

Laws, a former Atlanta debutante, was adopted at birth and tracked down her birthparents in her late twenties. She is known for saying, "You can never have too many parents." Laws believes that nature is stronger than nurture, even in the case of a person's interests, beliefs, and values, as evidenced by her personal situation.
Laws has never consumed any alcoholic beverage, tried illegal drugs, including marijuana, or smoked a cigarette. Prior to acting and writing, Laws experimented with a number of jobs. She was a cab driver, private investigator, bodyguard, backup singer for an Elvis imitator, nurse, fashion designer, aerobics instructor, antiques shop owner, and president of a mid-size legal corporation. Laws was a lecturer for the FBI in Quantico, Virginia in 2006 and has also been a licensed Realtor since 1987.
In April 2015, Laws went public about her three-year romance with singer Tom Jones in her memoir, Rebel in High Heels. She says he was her first boyfriend and that she dated him from age 18 until age 21.
She married English barrister and California attorney Charles Parselle in the 1990s and has a daughter named Kayla Laws, who is an actress. She also has three rescue dogs and six rescue chickens and calls herself a Jewish Jain. Laws’ father-in-law, Thomas Parselle, was captured by the Nazis during World War II, transported to a German POW camp and witness to the notorious break-out attempt as depicted in the movie, The Great Escape.
In 2012, Laws' chicken, Mae Poulet, was a write-in vice presidential candidate. She was selected by a dog from Tennessee to be his running mate on the Bully ticket. Mae Poulet was also involved in a 2011 fundraiser with actress Natalie Portman and actor Jason Alexander to raise money for poultry in need. In March 2013, Mae Poulet was inducted into the National Museum of Animals and Society.
Laws' grandfather, Tucker Moroose, was murdered by a devil worshiper in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1948. The story is detailed in Laws' book, Devil in the Basement.
In July 2019, Laws admitted in an article that she committed a crime which may have violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act when she conspired to rescue pigeons.

Works