Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence says she is disgusted by hackers who stole naked pictures of her and posted them online, labelling the leak as a “sex crime”.

Speaking for the first time after dozens of female celebrities, including actress Kirsten Dunst and model Kate Upton, were targeted, the Hollywood starlet said she felt violated by the theft.

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“It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime,” Lawrence told Vanity Fair.

“It is a sexual violation. It’s disgusting.

“Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody’s mind is to make a profit from it.”

“It’s so beyond me. I just can’t imagine being that detached from humanity. I can’t imagine being that thoughtless and careless and so empty inside.”

Hackers dumped nude photos of hundreds of female celebrities on social media last month after snatching them from Apple’s iCloud in what the tech giant called a “targeted attack.”

The 24-year-old star of the Hunger Games movie franchise admitted she was worried about how the photographs would affect her career.

“Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she said.

“It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world.”

She told Vanity Fair she had sent the photographs to her then-boyfriend while they were in a long-distance relationship.

She was initially tempted to write a statement, but said: “Every single thing that I tried to write made me cry or get angry.

“I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for. I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

She added that telling her father was the most difficult part of the incident.

“I don’t care how much money I get for The Hunger Games,” Lawrence said.

“I promise you, anybody given the choice of that kind of money or having to make a phone call to tell your dad that something like that has happened, it’s not worth it.

“Fortunately, he was playing golf, so he was in a good mood.”

Lawrence said those who looked at the images of her naked body “should cower with shame”.

“Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures’. I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”

More than a dozen Hollywood celebrities have threatened to sue Google for failing to crack down on the leaks.

A letter by prominent Tinseltown lawyer Marty Singer published by the Hollywood Reporter warned they could seek $US100 million ($A108.2 million) in damages from the US online search giant for failing to take down the photos.

– with agencies