Dylan Sprouse’s nude photo leak almost shut down the Internet Sunday and Monday, but it’s his reaction to what happened that’s even more noteworthy.

The 21-year-old Disney star was caught with his pants down, quite literally, when someone (believed to be an ex) leaked selfies of Dylan Sprouse nude.

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody actor didn’t deny it, ignore it or call in his publicist, however. He embraced it with a mix of contrition, humility and humor.

“Whoops, guess I’m not 14 and fat anymore,” Dylan Tweeted. “I messed up…but I’d be a fool not to own up to it. Got to move past it I suppose.”

He then had his brother Cole join in the damage control by laughing about the situation too. Cole wrote, “@DylanSprouse: Cold in the bathroom huh?”

Dylan then changed his bio to include “n00d pic dealer” and kept Tweeting:

• Move past it in a sexy way tho (with a photo of a smiling baby)
• Glad holiday spirit is still more important than my penis. (with a screen shot of Christmas edging him out on Twitter trends)
• At least you can’t see my third testicle

All kidding aside, he went on to address the issue insightfully on Tumblr, taking responsibility but defending himself at the same time. Sprouse writes:

First off, I will state that the reason I’m making light of the situation is because I don’t think what I did was wrong. To be blunt, I was proud of my progress in the gym, thought I looked hot, and wanted to share it. I’m of the mindset that whoever you are, if you are proud of your body and want to show it off, so be it! You do you. There is an odd taboo with the human form (especially in the USA) and I don’t particularly think its a good thing to teach people that you should “hide yourself” as something incredibly sacred. Blah blah blah, that’s a medieval notion.

Secondly, the real problem here was not me sending my pictures to someone, but rather, sending them to the WRONG someone. The real travesty is a misplaced trust, and while I am certainly to blame for it, it is a shame that my private life was somehow forcibly dragged into the public’s perception of me. What is wrong is that, generally I try to stay cool and collected with my prose and a role model for kids (maybe not anymore shamefully) and this seemingly inconsequential act will likely affect the youth’s impression of me. Not only that, but I worry somewhat for my artistic integrity, and my academic integrity. Not exactly ideal, but I’m to blame and I’ll look this incident in the eye like a man. I did it, but I’d be damned if I didn’t own that shit like Beyonce would want me to.

Sprouse also added that he’s having shirts made (below).

You have to hand it to the guy for being open, honest and truthful about the situation, taking responsibility but also pointing how someone else did this.

As a result of the whole scandal, he gained 200,000 Twitter fans, 40,000 Tumblr followers and 20,000 Instagram followers … so he did something right.

As he put it, “I’ll make it clear my intent was for this not to happen, and how it has affected me so positively is an enigma to me that rings true of the human condition.”

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoaalpKmsvLCwxqiqrKGgY7CwuY5rZ2prX2Z%2FcLDYpZinZaOlv7DB0p5kp5mbmrFuvMeoq6hlo5iur7DApWSiq12ixm6ywK6jrWWYpMSmwsSrZg%3D%3D