EARLIER THIS YEAR, ITV News anchor Charlene White shared what she claimed was an unretouched photo of supermodel Cindy Crawford.
It was soon retweeted thousands of times and shared by dozens of media outlets.
Women all over the world came out in support of the photo with many hailing it as “inspirational” and it helped prompt a much-needed discussion on body image.
Photographer John Russo later released a statement claiming that the photo had been stolen and doctored to make look Crawford look bad.
Crawford herself stayed mum on the photo and did not comment on the circumstances of the leak. Until now.
This month, the model discusses the incident with Elle Canada.
In an interview with the magazine, she states that she felt “conflicted” about the leak, but condemned the circumstances surrounding the release of the photo.
I felt that [the journalist] was inauthentic because she acted like this was great but she didn’t check if I wanted this out or if it was a real picture. Why would seeing a bad picture of me make other people feel good? I felt blindsided. I was very conflicted, to be honest.
As for why she didn’t disown the image immediately? She claims that the overwhelmingly positive reaction made her reluctant to do so.
“It was stolen and it was malicious, but there was so much positive reaction,” she tells the magazine. “Sometimes, the images that women see in magazines make them feel inferior—even though the intention is never to make anyone feel less.”
So somehow seeing a picture of me was like seeing a chink in the armour. Whether it was real or not isn’t relevant, although it’s relevant to me.
It put me in a tough spot: I couldn’t come out against it because I’m rejecting all these people who felt good about it, but I also didn’t embrace it because it wasn’t real—and even if it were real, I wouldn’t have wanted it out there. I felt really manipulated and conflicted, so I kept my mouth shut.
So there you have it.
Further proof that we can’t trust everything we see on the internet.
Written by Amy O’Connor and originally published on DailyEdge.ie
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say