BACKLASH

Inside Kylie Jenner’s Latest Photoshop Controversy

While her sister Kim is out promoting body positivity, the youngest Kardashian-Jenner stands accused of digitally shrinking her hips.

Keeping up with the Kardashians is difficult enough for the millions of fans who follow the family’s various franchises—sorry, members—on their Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter accounts.

Now however, and not for the first time, comes the utterly shocking suggestion that the fabulous lives of various K-folk as portrayed on social media may not, after all, be peak vérité.

A new photo of Kylie Jenner posing for an apparently off-the-cuff selfie has sent Instagram sleuths into a frenzy, with some alleging that the image has tell-tale signs of the use of a professional photo-editing program to deliver Jenner a smaller waist.

While it is clear that the image is in fact a carefully curated shot—Jenner is wearing Puma underwear and is a paid shill/ambassador for the brand—one professional photographer told The Daily Beast this morning that there shouldn’t be a rush to judgment.

Chris Floyd said that the supposed giveaway to the photo being touched up as identified by critics online, a distorted doorframe in the side of the image, may simply be caused by the mirror in which the image was taken.

“I have looked closely at the grain of the wood and I think it is probably the distortion of the mirror. I could go into the semantics of the word ‘Photoshopped,’ but the point is, the doorframe is an ocean away from her body, so, if her body is what is supposed to have been altered, there is no reason why the change would have impacted the doorframe.”

This, however, has not stopped online critics from piling on Jenner, 19.

“Squats??? How about I call out your deformed moulding on the door to the left,” wrote one fan.

“Photoshop and Photoshop and more Photoshop,” commented another.

Kylie’s sister Kim was praised in recent days for helping women have more realistic self-expectations after photographs of her on holiday showed cellulite on her famous posterior—but it should perhaps be noted the pictures were taken by paparazzi and distributed by the press, rather than being self-published by Kim.

Kim has, however, spoken openly about her body in interviews and insisted she has learned to live with her cellulite as it is an issue every woman struggles with.

She told Shape magazine: “I have cellulite, just like almost every other woman on the planet. And just because I feel secure with my body doesn’t mean I think cellulite is cute. It will always be an issue for me. So let’s just say it’s a work in progress.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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