Was Kelly Clarkson Slimmed Down Or Just A Victim Of Routine Airbrushing?

Like many celebrities, Kelly Clarkson appears on the September issue of Self looking more svelte than recent pictures of her in real life. We’ve been talking about airbrushing all week here at The Frisky, and we’ll continue to until it’s less of an industry standard. (Mind you, once that day comes, then we’ll probably talk about the dinosaurs who’re still doing it.) While it’s no big whoop that yet another star is airbrushed on a glossy magazine cover—after all, they all are each and every month—we noticed that Jezebel suggested that the editors at Self had not just airbrushed but also used Photoshop to slim the pop star down. Way down.

It’s not that the magazine is denying that any revisions were made: “Yes, of course we do post-production corrections on our images,” the Editor-in-Chief Lucy Danziger told ET. And while Jez writer Margaret points out that this particular issue closed in July—not to totally play the devil’s advocate here—the truth is that magazine cover shoots take place months before the issue comes out (and often many weeks, if not months before the close). Kelly in February (above), when it very possibly could have been shot, looks the same weight as Kelly on the Self cover. We’re not putting it past them, but it’s just an observation. And as Clarkson confesses inside the magazine, “My happy weight changes ... Sometimes I eat more; sometimes I play more. I’ll be different sizes all the time. When people talk about my weight, I’m like, ‘You seem to have a problem with it; I don’t. I’m fine!’” Sounds like a healthy, realistic attitude, and to many of us, familiar. Case closed on the latest airbrushing “scandal.” [Jezebel]