Cele|bitchy | Nicole Richie’s VF shoot retouched to add weight

Liz Smith mentions in her column in the NY Post today that the photos that accompany Nicole Richie’s interview in Vanity Fair were retouched to make her look healthy:

IT IS impossible not to be rather moved, and profoundly disturbed, by the Nicole Richie profile in the June Vanity Fair, in which Nicole discusses her weight issues with writer Leslie Bennetts. However, what is more disturbing is the photo layout. Here is a young woman who, when caught by the candid camera, looks as if she needs to be hauled away and force-fed. But in VF, she is posed and angled and retouched . . . to appear almost normal – a physical ideal for susceptible young (and not-so-young) women. Ick! And of course, how bizarre that Richie became a “star” as soon as her weight dropped to scary skinny. She is famous for being thin. It is truly a new world.

Nicole Richie became famous as soon as she started showing up for tons of events, and that just happened to coincide with her weight loss, probably because she had higher self esteem. While the ideal for slenderness in Hollywood is out of bounds and harmful to young women, I don’t think that Richie’s stardom can be attributed to her stick thin appearance. It is obviously unhealthy and not a good role model for anyone of course.

You can see the retouching in the photos below. In a picture of RIchie wearing underwear and kissing herself in the mirror, her butt looks a little too round to be real. Her face also looks less deathly.

The red string bracelet that Richie wears on her right wrist may not be a sign of anorexic pride that it can also stand for. (Some images are shown flipped, and the bracelet is really on her right hand.) It is from Kitson and is adorned with a gold hamsa, a protective jewish symbol. It’s just, uh, a coincidence that anorexics also wear red string bracelets on their right wrists while Kabbalah followers wear them on their left wrists.

Richie admits in her Vanity Fair interview that she’s too thin and that she’s getting help from a doctor and a nutritionist.

Pictures [via]