Bingle 'humiliated' by nude photo

MICHAEL CLAYTON-JONES/The Age

POPULAR COUPLE: Australian cricketer Michael Clarke and his fiancee Lara Bingle at the Allan Border Medal event in Melbourne last month.

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Australian model Lara Bingle says she has been humiliated by the release of a nude photo she claims was taken by AFL footballer Brendan Fevola.

She says the photo was taken without her permission and she feels exploited and compromised by its release.

"It's ... incredibly humiliating to think he passed it around to his friends, who passed it on to their friends. When I found out about it, I just felt like I had been violated," she told Woman's Day magazine, which last week published the photo.

The model and fiance of Australian cricketer Michael Clarke says she is suing the footballer to restore her "dignity and self-respect" and to show it's "not cool or funny" to distribute nude photos of anyone.

"Women should not have to accept that sort of behaviour just because a boyfriend or partner wants to impress their friends. It is demeaning and disrespectful of us."

In the wide-ranging interview Bingle talks about her relationship with Clarke, cricket, marriage and children.

She describes her fiance as amazing and says he has supported her in the "ups and downs that have happened in my life".

"He is always there for me," she says.

The scandal broke last week when the nude shower picture of Bingle, allegedly taken while she and Fevola were involved in a secret affair in 2006, was published in Woman's Day.

Fevola was later wiped from an AFL television campaign after it questioned the controversial Brisbane star over the nude photo.

It was reported Bingle was paid as much as $A200,000 (NZ$259,924) for the interview and photo shoot but her manager Max Markson and the magazine have denied this.

- AAP