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Love it or hate it, airbrushing and heavy photo editing is still a hot topic in 2018. The more blatant photo gaffes are fewer and farther between now that many brands and publications have pledged to nix Photoshopped images, but, still, they’re still out there.
These 10 celebrities have taken a public stand to call out Photoshopped images of themselves, and we applaud them.
1. Lupita Nyong’o
Lupita Nyong’o always wears her beautiful hair naturally on the red carpet, so when the Oscar winner realized British magazine Grazia UK had Photoshopped her hair on its November cover, she wasn’t about to ignore the incident.
The Kenyan-Mexican actress swiftly aired her disapproval on social media, posting a before-and-after image from the shoot on Twitter and Instagram, and sharing her disapproval. “I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like,” she wrote.
The magazine later apologized in a statement to TODAY Style: “Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologizes unreservedly to Lupita Nyong’o.”
2. Zendaya
When Modeliste Magazine posted heavily retouched photos of Zendaya in October 2015, the actress, who has been a long-time champion of body positivity, was the first to publicly speak out against the publication's choice.
“Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated,” she wrote in an Instagram caption. “These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have.”
Modeliste later addressed the issue on Instagram, acknowledging that the “re-touching of photos is a sensitive subject.” In the same post the magazine announced that “Modeliste Editor-in-Chief, Amy McCabe jointly with Zendaya and her parents made the immediate decision to pull the issue and are working with Zendaya at her request to publish the complete un-edited and authentic images from our Cover shoot in Puerto Vallarta.”
3. Solange Knowles
Solange Knowles released the song “Don’t Touch My Hair” in 2016, but It looks like Evening Standard Magazine didn’t take note. The singer posed for the cover of the magazine in October 2017 and wasn’t pleased with the final photo.
Knowles posted the original shot, which shows the singer rocking a sassy braid that circles her head, to show how the publication edited out her complex ‘do, captioning the post “dtmh,” or “Don’t touch my hair.”
The Evening Standard later issued an apology, saying “The decision to amend the photograph was taken for layout purposes but plainly we made the wrong call and we have offered our unreserved apologies to Solange."
4. Meghan Markle
It’s pretty clear Prince Harry loves everything about his royal bride-to-be, Meghan Markle, right down to her freckles. So it’s likely he’d share readers’ disappointment that his fiancée’s freckles were missing on the cover of Elle France’s December 2017 issue.
The cover, which features a photo from a 2015 issue of Gritty Pretty magazine, shows Markle sans her signature freckles. This comes after the actress and activist told Allure that she’s always annoyed by this particular Photoshop fail: "To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot."
5. Emily Ratajkowski
Emily Ratajkowski posted a photo of her Madame Figaro cover on Instagram in September 2017, but the post wasn't exactly celebratory.
The actress expressed her frustration after the magazine shrunk her lips and lifted her breasts in the photo, writing: "I was extremely disappointed to see my lips and breasts altered in photoshop on this cover. I hope the fashion industry will finally learn to stop trying to stifle the things that make us unique and instead begin to celebrate individuality."
6. Kerry Washington
Kerry Washington represents the epitome of class, and the way she handled disapproving of her ADWEEK April 2016 cover was no different. The “Scandal” star took to Instagram to discuss her feelings on the subject.
“Look, I'm no stranger to Photoshopping. It happens a lot. In a way, we have become a society of picture adjusters - who doesn't love a filter?!?” she wrote. “It felt strange to look at a picture of myself that is so different from what I look like when I look in the mirror. It’s an unfortunate feeling.”
Washington also shared how proud she was of the article and thanked fans for being patient while she “figured out how to post this in a way that felt both celebratory and honest.”
7. Ashley Benson
Ashley Benson played the comically honest voice on the hit show "Pretty Little Liars." Now that the series has ended, she's continuing to dish out brutal honesty in real life. The actress recently spoke out against the show's heavily Photoshopped posters in an interview with Stylecaster.
"PLL had put up this poster and it was from our first season and it was completely crazy. Nobody looked like themselves," she said. "Even for magazine covers, they’ll Photoshop out a mole, make your boobs bigger or your waist four sizes smaller, and you’re like, ‘That’s not even me.’ You never know how it’s going to turn out because you have no control and you’re not editing the photos, but it sucks when you’re like, ‘Wow. That’s a completely different person.’”
8. Iggy Azalea
Despite the name of her album, “Digital Distortion,” Iggy Azalea isn’t a fan of photo changes. The rapper appeared on the cover of Schon Magazine to promote her album wearing a transparent corset-dress that accentuates her curves.
After the release, Azalea took to Twitter to share a side-by-side comparison how she looked before and after Photoshop. Although she admitted to loving the photos in general, Azalea said that she preferred the image “before they photoshopped (her) thighs and hips to seem skinnier.”
9. Meghan Trainor
Meghan Trainor pulled down her “Me Too” music video once she realized that the size of her waist had been edited without her permission. With lyrics such as “I see the magazines working that Photoshop. We know that s*** ain't real. Come on now, make it stop,” the “All About That Bass” singer is known for celebrating her size.
"I took down the YouTube video because they Photoshopped the crap out of me. And I'm so sick of it and I’m over it, so I took it down until they fix it," Trainor told fans in a Snapchat video. She also released a side-by-side photo on her Instagram showing the difference between the two versions.
10. Lorde
Lorde shared two contrasting photos from her 2014 performance at Lollapalooza in Santiago, Chile on Twitter. One photo showed the singer with perfectly edited skin and the other depicted her naturally.
“Remember flaws are ok,” she reminded her fans.
This isn’t the only time Lorde has called out Photoshop for changing her appearance. A month after she posted the photos from Lollapalooza, she tweeted that a magazine “gave (her) a new nose.”
This story was originally published on Dec. 20, 2017.