The Celebrity Cafe reported Thursday that Johansson was threatening to sue websites that published the leaked photos.
E! is now reporting that TheDirty.com founder Nik Richie has pulled the pics from his site not because of the legal repercussion but because of his morals.
"I usually never remove images I get from hackers or third parties," he told E! News. "When you're a public figure, you're looking for attention as far as press and media. But in Scarlett's case, I felt for her."
"It wasn't Marty [Singer, Johansson's lawyer] that motivated me to take things off the TheDirty.com. It was the more I looked at the images, I really thought they were hacked. I really felt bad for Scarlett Johansson in the situation, so I thought, 'Let's take them down, let me be the bigger person for once.'"
The Deadbolt reported that in Singer's cease and desist letter he wrote, "capture our client self-posing in her own home in a state of undress and/or topless. If you fail to comply, you will be acting at your own peril."
