Halle Berry is one small step closer to getting the paparazzi off her back. The actress scored a victory in her ongoing court battle against the shutterbugs this week, when she convinced the California state Judiciary Committee to approve an anti-paparazzi bill up to the Appropriations Committee.
Berry, who is pregnant with her second child, said she was trying to “protect her children and protect their rights,” and that the constant presence of photographers yelling and snapping pictures has made her young daughter, Nahla Aubry, afraid to go to school. "I don't want a gang of shouting, arguing, law-breaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are, all day, every day, to continue to traumatize my kids," she said, according to the Associated Press.
The actress recounted one horrific incident, when a paparazzo crossed the line by shouting to her daughter, "you may not see your father again." The shutterbug was referencing the ongoing custody battle with her ex, Gabriel Aubry, and Berry's attempt to move her daughter to France to live with her now-husband Olivier Martinez.
"She’d ask, ‘Why did they say that to me, mommy? What does that mean? Who are these men and why are they following us?’” Berry said. “We aren’t just whiny celebrities. We’re moms who are just trying to protect our children.”
Berry has been involved in numerous altercations with the paparazzi, the most recent one at LAX airport earlier this year, when Martinez smashed the camera of an intrusive shutterbug. Berry was pregnant at the time, though she did not announce her baby news until weeks later.
Though the bill to ban paparazzi from camping out at the schools and playgrounds where celebrity children dwell has a long way to go before it becomes law, Berry has proved relentless in leading the charge. Fellow celeb mom Jennifer Garner joined her in the crusade, and A-lister George Clooney has launched many legal efforts over the years to curtail the access paparazzi have to their subjects.
Unsurprisingly, newspapers and magazines have been the most vocal opposition to the bill, claiming that the proposed law would prevent journalists from doing their job.
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 (Photo: Brian To/WENN.com)