If you follow Erin Napier, star of Home Town, you may have seen the photo she posted recently on Instagram. She was in the picture, as well as her husband Ben, and Helen, their three-year-old daughter.
Helen was reading Shel Silverstein’s Falling Up, and they decided to lay on their backs and have the picture taken from above. You can see Ben and Erin but they decided to hide Helen’s face.
Many people who commented on the picture were saying how much they loved that classic book. There was also a thread that formed about the fact that they never show Helen’s face in pictures. One person claimed that it was possible to see the three-year-old’s face in past Home Town episodes, and Erin finally stepped in to speak.
The first thing she did was to debunk the comment, saying that they do show Helen on Home Town, but it is only in two episodes per season where you catch a “fleeting glance.” She went on to explain that it “is very different and less useful to a predator than a library of static images of her face sitting in my IG account.”
Napier then elaborated on her Instagram story to let people know, without a doubt, why Helen’s face is not being shown.
She said: “It’s an awful feeling to have millions of people pick apart an image of your baby’s face. It’s an awful feeling to see a photo of your child used to promote some sort of overseas kids clothing company.”
She also talks about how unsettling it is when strangers visit their area and a random grandmother reaches out to embrace their little girl, even though they don’t know her. She said that without Helen, their lives would be “hollow and there would be nothing to share.”
In the end, she says that it is their personal choice and not everyone may agree with it, but her likeness is theirs to protect. She closes by saying: “We love and appreciate everyone who supports the show, but Helen doesn’t owe anyone anything.”