Leavitt, 28, Crops Out Husband, 60, After Family Photo Backlash
The press secretary was embroiled in controversy over a Halloween post.
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
Karoline Leavitt, 28, quietly cropped her 60-year-old husband’s face out of new photos after she was blasted for allegedly photoshopping him in a family shot.
The White House press secretary shared Instagram stories on Sunday that appeared to show Nicholas Riccio’s torso, arms, legs, and even feet, but conveniently didn’t include anything above his shoulders.
One picture showed the couple’s son atop a blanket, grabbing a toy from someone lying down who appears to be Riccio.
Leavitt’s latest batch of images comes after her Nov. 2 slideshow post, in which the first picture was Riccio, her and their pumpkin-costumed 16-month-old son, Niko. Commenters said she photoshopped the real estate magnate’s face.
“The airbrushing of your hubs face to make him appear younger was the trick,” one Instagram user wrote.
“Karoline, Awesome picture but my friends noticed something: The guy on the left seems to have only his face photoshopped. His hands look like 60+ years old,” another person added. “What happened?”
The new photos shared with her over 2.6 million followers appeared to show the pair attending church and spending time with Niko.
One picture, captioned, “coffee + play time in bed” with a white heart emoji, showed the couple’s son atop a blanket, grabbing a toy from someone lying down who appears to be Riccio.
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The man is dressed in all black, with his right arm visible and his head cropped out.
In the top left corner, there are a man’s suede shoes kicked up on the red carpet.
Leavitt, who is Catholic, also snapped a picture of a Bible verse while in church, captioned “Sunday service” with the praying hands emoji. In the top left corner, there are a man’s suede shoes kicked up on the red carpet.
Other images included her making post-church cinnamon rolls, watching football with Niko, the couple’s Christmas tree, and a mirror selfie with the tot on her hip.
Leavitt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another image was a mirror selfie with the tot on her hip.
The youngest ever White House press secretary — and former New Hampshire congressional candidate — described meeting Riccio in 2022 as “a very atypical love story.”
“A mutual friend of ours hosted an event at a restaurant that he owns up in New Hampshire and invited my husband,” Leavitt said on The Megyn Kelly Show in March. “I was speaking. We met and we were acquainted as friends. And then we fell in love.”
Leavitt gave birth to Niko last July and married the New Hampshire real estate developer this January.
“He’s built a very successful business himself, so now he’s fully supportive of me building my success in my career,” she told Kelly.
Her husband’s business, Riccio Enterprises LLC, manages beachfront homes in the Granite State.
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