Zendaya will cover the November issue of Modeliste magazine, which has released part of the shoot but none of the interview (yet). Z noticed that one of the shots ^^^ happened to be Photoshopped to the point where it looks like she lost her hips. Whenever Zendaya is confronted with a sketchy issue like this, she always responds with grace and chooses her words carefully. Just like when she handled those hairstyle issues, she’s on top of this one too. Z always thinks things through because she takes the role model thing seriously. Here’s how she responded to Modeliste’s overzealous treatment of her bod:
Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated. These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Anyone who knows who I am knows I stand for honest and pure self love. So I took it upon myself to release the real pic (right side) and I love it😍😘 Thank you @modelistemagazine for pulling down the images and fixing this retouch issue.
[From Zendaya on Instagram]
Zendaya always handles these shaming issues well, and yes, Photoshopping like crazy is a form of body shaming by the media. They know better than to do this, but they do it anyway. Z also handled makeup shamers the same way, but she’s also so careful to never shame anyone else in the process. Zendaya isn’t saying anything bad about women with smaller hips and torsos, she just wants to open a magazine and see her actual body!
Oh, and we never posted these photos of Z at Paris fashion week. Here she is looking fabulous at the Vivienne Westwood show.
Photos courtesy of WENN
I don’t understand magazines. Zendaya is already a thin woman. Why make her seem even skinnier? I’m sure there are women that work for these magazines, what gives? So annoying.
Right? She’s already tiny–why would you even bother to do this? The before pic is so much better from a composition perspective as well.
The original picture looks so much better. What did they do to her skin tone (along with making her slimmer)? Look at her legs, two different colors.
Yes to this. The original is gorgeous! The excessive ‘shopping would be a bad thing regardless, but in this case it’s downright insane!
To make her tan instead of brown.
+1000 to @JESSOUTWEST
Was coming over to answer @Princessme you beat me to it. Lol well done.
The skin tone thing is almost as egregious as the body photo chop.
They’d rather have Zendaya appear at first glance to be a bleached blonde Malibu Barbie w/ that oh so familiar tanning booth or shake&bake burnt orange – than have her be what she is, a light brown girl of African-American descent.
Her natural complexion is beautiful and yet look what they did to it.
Very sad.
They used the vibrancy tool . It makes the hues “pop’ more in pics. The pic on the left, although more natural, looks more faded. The sky, the colors in the background, etc, all stand out more that way. I actually use that process when I edit my pictures, especially if they are taken under natural, bright sunlight. it washes out color in everything.
@Whatwhatnot
There are plenty of tools that saturate a picture with more color, and yes I get that they’re saturating color into a natural pic. However her face and body are a reddish orange – they did that for a reason – they could have easily made her a warmer darker golden brown and not malibu barbie deep orange.
They made her an orangey tan for their readership…to make her appearance more acceptable and what they think is the most desired ‘tan’ complexion.
I agree. She has a great little bod! There was no need to photoshop at all!
I see why they did it (although of course think it’s wrong). Whoever makes that coat is an advertiser, and they want to make sure that the coat looks as good as possible, which means smoothing it out, which means a cascade of photoshop. Now the discrepancy between how they think the coat should ideally look and how the rest of the world thinks the coat should look on a real person is unacceptably wide, so disasters like this happen. I can see where it started though, wrong as it was, and how someone made a series of bad decisions.
I give her extra credit for calling out the magazine. And I do think she looks better in the “before” pic, but there is something wrong with the photo — near the top of her left leg, immediately below to tip of the belt sash, there’s something weird going on, making it look like there’s a gash in her left leg. If the magazine used photoshop to fix something like that, I don’t have a problem with it. But they shouldn’t completely re-do a woman to look like a cartoon, it’s like erasing her real existence.
It’s a shadow from her belt which is an easy fix with a blending tool. All with out resizing her torso.
Her body looks better in the before picture. I don’t know why having the flat hips of a 70s glam rocker is such an exclusive thing. There were beautiful women 60 years ago in the press who had round hips and fat on their thighs. And she’s already quite thin.
Exactly! She looks great in the first shot! No need to change anything!
Seriously. The real photo is 10 times more attractive. I’m not just saying that to be supportive, I mean it. So confused by this Photoshoping.
She’s a bombshell in the real photo and looks like a 12-year old in the after photo – I don’t get it.
Absolutely- the original pic is SO much better!
this is why I stay away from fashion mags!! I am 5’2 and 105 -110 pounds and the photoshopping makes me feel fat lol. I’m a size 00/02.
Let’s be honest, people. Fashion magazines are about the unattainable and about making people (mainly women) feel as though they are not good enough or meeting the ideal, so they will….buy things in the magazine and keep buying the magazine so they can figure out all the other ways in which they do not measure up. It’s like the Kardshians–you’re supposed to try to keep up with them and their ever-changing, ever-fake brand of beauty. You’re supposed to realize you’re not good enough and keep looking to them for ideas on how to be ” better looking,” or more stylish, or more popular. And you will never measure up, so they keep scoring money off your insatiable desire to be like them. They get richer, you get poorer precisely because they are setting unattainable standards to MAKE you feel inferior. They are one in the same. I do not subscribe to either (Kardashians or fashion magazines).
yep – its advertising/capitalism 101 – make it rain and then sell them umbrellas. Being your own person ad having self esteem is almost an act of rebellion in today’s society.
She looks beautiful and flawless in the original photo! Why mess with that?? I swear, this Photoshopping nonsense is out of control. Give it a rest already!
I don’t get it. I find the untouched pic far more beautiful. Why mess with her perfectly lovely figure at all?!?!? It is just sick what these magazines are doing and I don’t get why they don’t stop.
They think every woman who appears in their magazines has to have the ‘gisele’ silhouette in order not to appear hideous.
the magazines need to accept that there are multiple ways to be beautiful instead of just one
She’s a class act. Good for her expressing the truth in a respectful and intelligent way. I agree the untouched photo looks better.
I do not know who her parents or her PR people are, but I agree – this girl is a class act. I cannot wait to see what she accomplishes in life.
Based on her interviews discussing her parents and her childhood I think she’s just a good kid who was raised right. She mentions her parents really trying to educate her and close her to art and how she devoured things like Shakespeare at a very young age.
Lucky her (no sarcasm) seeing even millionaire parents who can’t be bothered to use their resources to help their kids flourish puts it all in perspective what effort and love can create.
It’s like they have a photo shop quota. Must alter at least 3 body parts on each picture. I think the original looks amazing and they could have spun it as a no photo shop shoot. Check out intelligent Zendaya, flawless? You’ll see in these untouched photos?! HIRE ME MAGAZINE!
Man, I love this girl. She’s gorgeous and has a lovely personality to match.
Her and Amandla give me hope.
Magazines need to stop this crap.
Women in the industry shoiuld have a clause put in their contracts for photoshoots… that photoshopping in order to alter body size and shape is not permitted. That’s the only way this will stop.
(I don’t mean airbrushing blemishes and such)
Have these Photoshop retouchers and editors ever seen a human body before??? They consistently make people look deformed! uhg. In the brief period that I attended art school, human anatomy was a year long course if not more (depending on your focus). How do these computer based guys get out of that? And I’m going to say fail on the photographer’s part for the crappy use of lens/filters on the original. but then again, if they’re going to photoshop the pic in to oblivion anyway, why bother?
Oh, and let me share this little nugget of craziness:
My best friend was telling me about how there was an available option (for a small fee, of course) for her 5-year-old daughter’s softball photo to be retouched (to “correct” coloring, fly-away hairs, whiten teeth…). She couldn’t believe it! Yep…Photoshopping has reached a new extreme. Smh.
Yeah my kids school pics offer this too. Seriously? No thanks.
My high school offered this back in the day. There were a few kids with REALLY bad acne who used it and in the yearbook they looked like borderline different people. Absurd!
Yeah my 10 yo daughter just had her school pics taken. They have a photoshop option, which she asked me about. I told her don’t be ridiculous, you’re beautiful just the way you are.
Photoshop is so pervasive that I’m always surprised( pleasantly so) to see a celebrity with wrinkles in a magazine. Photoshop is really out of hand these days
Now that seems like a terrible idea, I think it’s such a fragile age with natural insecurity coupled with all the crap they get from the media and their peers that offering Photoshop (which I’m sure you’re charged for) is just a guarantee.
Oh. My. God.
This sucks. When I was in school there was no photoshop, and you’d end up looking terrible in the class pic, and feel bad about it. If we had photoshop when I was an insecure teenager, I probably would have embraced it fully. Which in turn would make it even worse, because in real life I’d never be able to look as smooth-skinned and skinny like on the photos.
Wow. That never existed when I was a kid and it shouldn’t. Part of the great thing about school pictures is seeing how you grow up…awkward glasses, braces and all.
But that sends a troubling message that they even OFFER this to kids
I got upset in high school when the photographer Photoshopped my senior pics without my permission. He removed some old scar and a dark spot that I had come to accept and find beautiful in their flawed ways. I said it didn’t look like me. Was pissed. Still am. Why was this person trying to suggest that anything about me needed to be changed for me to be considered perfect? God, I had so much idealism and conviction back then. Wonder where and why it went….
That’s crazy! I bet if everyone said yes, the team photo would look like a bunch of 5 year old Real Housewives characters.
When I was in school, only senior portraits would be retouched, and it was usually very minor stuff compared to today. These magazines are ridiculous.
I have a similar story though perhaps not as dramatic. When my little brothers were taking their baby photos I remember one of them drooling up a storm and wondering whether we’d have to shoot and reshoot and the woman just waved her hands and said they could easily remove all of it without any problems.
Have to admit, that surprised me.
I don’t understand they they felt the need to photoshop her. Is the Editor pro Anorexia or something? Because she looks great in the original pic and too thin in the photoshopped one. That’s so weird.
Right?? I thought the same thing too.
Exactly my thoughts. She actually looks like a woman with her hips as she should. She is incredibly beautiful and I don’t throw the word “beautiful” around. She seriously looks better the way she is. These ridiculous alterations are begging the question why?. They also made her arm look really skinny. again, why? And lastly, that was a bad photoshop bc you can clearly see the lack of alignment on the wall by her used-to-be-hip.
Anorexic looks are not natural looks (I don’t even mean incredibly skinny looking). It is unattainable without one doing something extreme to change themselves. It’s mind torture and a great way to make women slaves to fashion and desperate to fix themselves, which only magazines and the fashion industry know how to do for you, you know….
Besides the magazine people’s own warped views concerning the female “ideal” body type, maybe part of it is softening up the readership to want to buy all the advertisers’ products by making them feel deformed compared to the bodies pictured and therefore buy ALL the products chasing the unattainable ideal.
I find prevalence of photoshopping to be already so thoroughly disturbing, but Zendaya’s proportions are outrageously beautiful and exotic, with almost mathematically perfect curving and tapering, with fashionably thin limbs and toning. What could possibly be going on in editors heads when the imposition of this artifice is a given?
It’s actually disturbing because she’s such a petite girl there is no reason for them to do that except I guess to prove their value?
Ahhh. I think you hit the nail on the head. Justification and job security pretty much answers it all.
she’s lovely, but why does she have a tablecloth attached to that cute dress?
Lol that Westwood for you!
Pretty much, lol
She is so tactful and gracious. I love her.
This is an extremely classy young lady. I mean that was handled with grace and not a single bridge was burned.
Some older celebrities/people could learn from her and Amandla. These girls are the definition of poise, tact and grace.
She looks great before.
When a beautiful young girl is photoshopped like that you know something is really really wrong. Those who did that must be on drugs.
I’m loving this girl she gives me such hope for her generation in Hollywood. She is a beauty and smart. I hope she has a very successful A list career. I’d love to see more of her.
The real pic is much more sultry and gorgeous, the photoshopped one looks awful.
Who is this girl? I love her.
I’ve just read she’s 5’10 ft tall, is that right? Damn, she looks so small and delicate.
You can see it when she’s acting-she’s taller than everyone else in the room.
Yes she she very tall she take after her mother who is ether 6″0 or over that.
It’s cool, because usually tv makes people look smaller… I always thought she was like, 5’3… Well, you can tell I’ve never seen her out of here. But why ladies here always call her “petite”? I thought the word could only be used for short, thin women. Anyway, just curious.
Wow, I would have thought she was much shorter. That’s even crazier then, she actually does have a very model-like figure, and they still altered her photos.
I LOVE that she is speaking up on this and releasing the actual photo. I adore this young woman.
Geez, no wonder she didn’t seem out of place next to Swifty. That squad certainly has a ‘type’.
Thanks for posting this. I love her and I’m so happy my ten year old loves her as well. She is a great role model and is about to bring out her own shoe line. The only 19 yo I follow on Instagram!
Holy lord. She is so stunning. Screw these mags-they have gone so insane.
This pisses me off on so many different levels.
I love Zendaya. She is already so slim it disgusts me that someone thought she should be made thinner! There was nothing to alter or perfect. Her skin is already flawless, her body is already model-esque. This is a prime example of society acting like women are never good enough. You have this stunningly gorgeous young woman and it still isn’t enough?
I’m not the kind of person who starves themselves because the latest trend is to have a thigh gap and never eat carbs, but I’m totally guilty of having to remind myself that half of the pictures we see of celebrities are photoshopped to death. I don’t know why, it just never dawns on me. It doesn’t bother me now, but when I was a kid, I wish I knew that half the stuff you see is altered into something ridiculous and unrealistic. Sh-t like this is so damn unhealthy.
Once again, Zendaya proves to be an incredible person. Her parents did an incredible job with her.
She seems like a nice girl and smart too, but what does she do again? She’s famous because she was almost in a Lifetime movie?
She has her own Disney show and has done a ton of other kid/teen shows–she has a huge following of younger people. My stepkids are all obsessed with her.
She is a singer as well 😀
My 5 year old loves her so much.
She does music occassionally, had a Disney show where she was one of the co-leads, is currently producer of her own show on Disney, and does a lot of fan outreach and charity. She’s pretty awesome once you get to know her.
Queen! She continues to win at life.
Get it girl! She is so pretty and her who she is as a person makes her shine. What a true, genuine, girl to be a role model for others, of all ages! She is never just talk, always follows up w/ action… That is beyond unique in Hollywood.
There is still something “off” in the real photo, with her left thigh……
These magazines continue to take photoshopping to ridiculous new heights.
Click. Let’s erase and retouch anything that makes you unique. Blur. Can’t have people thinking you have pores or that your skin creases. All the name of an unattainable ideal.
Go ahead Zendaya! Continue to show them that beauty is not all about looks.
I absolutely love this young woman. She is a good example of a role model in that she is not afraid to speak her mind or challenge conformity.
I seriously hate excessive Photoshopping. Like if you don’t want people in your ads or magazines that look like real people, don’t hire them! Just have an illustrator to draw cartoons if you’re just gonna photoshop to cartoonish proportions anyway.
I really detest those Disney shows she stars in, that said…I think this girl is so lovely and talented.
I wish Fashion Police would hire her!
She’s called out the mag because she’s already like the thinnest woman ever. If she had any other body type she would keep quiet
Lol, there’s always an excuse for why someone is kind or classy isn’t there?
How ridiculous of this magazine.
In the world of Hollywood approved body types she’s ‘it’. She’s tall, long limbs, some curves and great bone structure (and dem brows…) what more does that industry want from us if even she gets photoshopped to the size of a rail.
What more do they want from women if we take the ‘ideal’ (and I am speaking strictly in terms of that industry) and still say it’s not good idea. It’s sick and it profits no one. I don’t even think the average person can achieve the photoshop goals anymore without turning to an eating disorder. Makes me miss the 90’s when celebs looked like people.
In the unphotoshopped photo, her body looks like that of a Barbie doll. Her hips accentuate her small waist. I think the ideal measurements used to be 36-24-36. The unphotoshopped image is much closer to that ideal. What were they thinking????