Lena Dunham Apologises For Photoshop Claim After Magazine Denies Retouching

Lena Dunham Apologises For Photoshop Claim After Magazine Denies Retouching

Lena Dunham has issued a public apology to a Tentaciones magazine after claiming it had Photoshopped an image of her on its front cover.

The 'Girls' star took to Instagram to complain about the perceived airbrushing of an image, only to learn - via an open letter - that she was wrong.

Now Dunham has apologised to the magazine, which is a supplement of Spanish national newspaper El Pais, with another Instagram post.

"It's a weird feeling to see a photo and not know if it's your own body anymore," she says, adding that she has a "long and complicated history with retouching" because of society and its rigid beauty standards.

A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on

In the post, which has been described as a "backpedal" by the Guardian, Dunham thanks Tentaciones for being "good natured" about her "request for accuracy".

She apologises for misdirecting the wider issue she has with Photoshopping at the "cool" magazine. "Time to get to the bottom of this in a bigger way," she concludes.

Good for her on publicly owning her mistakes, we say, and for not letting the world forget the wider issues around retouched images in media.

After her original Instagram was posted, El Pais wrote an open letter to Dunham on its website, explaining that the photograph in question was approved by her agency, photographer and publicist.

It explained that the same photo was originally published by Entertainment Weekly in 2013 and that the image was not retouched by the publication.

The statement read: "Those who are familiar with and follow our magazine will know that we do not use Photoshop nor other digital tools to change the physical appearance of our cover stars, nor in the features to be found inside. On this occasion, the only thing we did was to crop the image to adapt it to the format of our front page."

'Tentaciones' magazine has since issued a response explaining that the photograph in question was approved by her agency, photographer and publicist.

They explained that the same photo was originally published by Entertainment Weekly in 2013 and that the image they acquired from her agency was not retouched by their publication.

"Those who know and follow our magazine know that we do not use Photoshop or other digital tools to change the physique of the people featured on our cover or inside stories," they wrote.

"This time we just cut the original image to fit the format of our cover."

In Dunham's initial post, which now has more than 43,000 likes, she wrote: "I am genuinely honoured to be on your cover and so happy you licensed a pic by @ruvenafanador, who always makes me feel gorgeous.

"BUT this is NOT what my body has ever looked like or will ever look like - the magazine has done more than the average photoshop. So if you're into what I do, why not be honest with your readers? Much love, Lena."

A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on

Since she shared the Instagram photo, many of Dunham's fans have applauded her for standing up against Photoshopping, but others have been quick to stick up for 'Tentaciones' too.

One person commented: "Check out their response on the elpais.com website, Lena! They effectively prove that they used the original picture, and simply cropped it. Looks like your issue might be with @ruvenafanador, and not this magazine!

"Either way, it's fantastic that you speak out against photoshop. Keep it up: gives the rest of us hope."

The magazine also posted a link to the original photograph of Dunham, which was shared on Facebook by photographer Ruven Afanador in 2013.

Lena Dunham, photographed in New York City on January 8th, 2013 for Entertainment Weekly...

Posted by Ruven Afanador on Thursday, February 14, 2013
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