Kanye West fired the first shot.
After his buxom bride, Kim Kardashian, posted the couple’s wedding photo to the social networking site Instagram three weeks ago, and after it became the most popular image in history on the site, garnering over 2.3 million likes and 51,000+ comments (at time of writing), the Grammy winning rapper said that it all happened because famed photographer Annie Leibovitz backed out on him at the last minute.
“Let me tell you something about that kiss photo that my girl put up … this was pissing my girl off during the honeymoon, she was exhausted because we worked on the photo so much because Annie Leibovitz pulled out right before the wedding,” West said during a Cannes Lions press conference. “I think that she was, like, scared of the idea of celebrity.”
Anyone who’s familiar with Leibovitz’s work knows the claim is baseless. She’s produced iconic photographs of everyone from John Lennon to the Obama family, and shot West, Kardashian, and their daughter North for Vogue earlier this year.
Now, reps for Leibovitz and West have cleared the air.
“Kanye West’s comments about Annie Leibovitz while speaking at the 2014 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival have been taken out of context and sensationalized,” said a representative for Leibovitz. “She would have loved to have taken their wedding portrait and was disappointed it didn’t happen.”
“Although Kanye expressed frustration that he was not able to collaborate with Annie Leibovitz at his recent wedding, he is not assigning blame, and is not accusing Annie in any way. Unbeknownst to Kanye, she was never confirmed. Kanye and Annie’s representatives were in negotiations for weeks that were not completed by the time of the wedding,” added a representative for West.
So, there you have it.