Beyonce's unretouched L'Oreal photos only latest in her long history of Photoshop controversies
Beyonceâs #Flawless image is embroiled in controversy once again. A reportedly unretouched set of photos of the 33-year-old singer from an old L'Oreal campaign have gone viral this week. On Wednesday, a web site called The Beyonce World leaked 224 allegedly raw photos of the musician.
The images showed Bey in full makeup for the 2013 L'Oreal ad campaign â but with the kinds of âimperfectionsâ we all have â beauty marks, bumps, creases. In the wake of Cindy Crawfordâs unretouched photos, the images have been praised by critics of a beauty industry that sets impossibly high standards, standards that Queen Bey has been known to uphold in the past.
Back in 2013, BuzzFeed went viral with an article entitled, âThe âUnflatteringâ Photos BeyoncĂ©âs Publicist Doesnât Want You To See,â including an e-mail from the singerâs PR person requesting the removal of âunflatteringâ images of her client. The majority of the photos simply showed Bey making fierce faces that matched her fierce persona.
Then, last year, Bey was accused multiple times of releasing overly-Photoshopped images of herself. In April, she posted a photo on Instagram of herself playing golf, but our eyes were more drawn to her extremely pronounced thigh gap than to her putt.
A few months later, she was once again the topic of Photoshop conversation after posting a bikini photo in which her legs appeared slimmed down. Eonline noted that one of the stairs was âtilted,â giving the impression that the image was edited.
And just this past November, Beyonce was back in the spotlight with a photo of herself wearing a one-piece with the words â99 Problems but my ass ainât oneâ on it. BuzzFeed argued that the curtains behind her were skewed, suggesting the image was tweaked.
Shortly after, Beyonce released a behind-the-scenes video to accompany her song âPretty Hurtsâ in which she slammed unrealistic beauty expectations and revealed that she is as affected by them as the rest of us. âIâm pretending to get a face-lift and Botox,â she says in one scene. âIt represents all the things that women go through to keep up with the pressure that society puts on us.â