Actress Lupita Nyong’o on Thursday voiced her displeasure with the glossy British magazine Grazia U.K. For how she appeared on its cover.
“Disappointed that @GraziaUK edited out & smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like,” she posted on Twitter.
Nyong’o, of 12 Years a Slave fame, also posted a lengthy statement on Instagram. With the messages, she attached photos of Grazia’s edited November 2017 cover and what appeared to be original images from the cover photo shoot. The end product shows Nyong’o with a short, sheen cut minus a ponytail’s worth of hair. The Oscar winner also added the hashtag #dtmh to her posts, short of “don’t touch my hair.”
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The photoshop job, she said, was an attempt by the magazine to make her “fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like.”
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“Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women’s complexion, hair style and texture,” she said.
Bauer Media, which owns Grazia, did not immediately return Coins2Day‘s request for comment.
Nyong’o’s criticism of the cover comes weeks after singer Solange Knowles blasted the London Evening Standard magazine with similar feedback. Knowles appeared on its cover without a braid crown she’d had at the cover photoshoot. On Instagram, Knowles posted an original image and tagged the Evening Standard with the #dtmh hashtag. “Don’t Touch My Hair” is the title of a song on Knowles’s latest album.
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The fashion industry has made strides of late to broaden and diversify its image of beauty, but magazines undercut those efforts when they—quite literally—erase the traits that make women unique.