Academy award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o has called out Grazia Magazine for editing her hair to fit “Eurocentric” standards of beauty.
Nyong’o who was featured on the front cover of this week’s edition of the publication took to social media to air her disappointment. She posted an image of the original photo alongside the cover photo on her Twitter account.
In the original the actress is seen sporting a pulled back hairstyle with a visible bun of curly hair at the back of her head, this is in contrast to the cover photo wherein her bun has been removed and she is sporting a sleeker short hairstyle. “Disappointed that Grazia UK edited out and smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like,” Nyong’o captioned her post.
Disappointed that @GraziaUK edited out & smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like. #dtmh pic.twitter.com/10UUScS7Xo
— Lupita Nyong’o (@Lupita_Nyongo) November 10, 2017
The actress followed this up with the same images on Instagram but this time wrote a longer explanation on why it is important to feature non-western standards of beauty in the mainstream media particularly in fashion magazines like Grazia.
“As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too” she wrote “Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are.”
For its part, Grazia has responded with an apology. In a statement the magazine said “Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologizes unreservedly to Lupita Nyong’o,” They also said that ” at no point did they make any editorial request to the photographer for Lupita Nyong’o’s hair to be altered on this week’s edition, nor did we alter it ourselves.” Grazia did not mention who is responsible for altering the actress’ hair for the edition, the photo though was taken by An Le Studios which does covers for numerous fashion magazines.
— Grazia UK (@GraziaUK) November 10, 2017
Lupita Nyong’o first rose to fame with her performance in 12 Years a Slave for which she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, she also voices the character Maz Kanata in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the upcoming Star Wars:The Last Jedi . She will also have a major supporting role in the highly anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Black Panther which is due for wide release on February 16, 2018.
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