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:

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]