*Lupita Nyong’o was not happy Thursday upon seeing her new cover of Grazia U.K., which she said had photoshopped out the natural kink and coil of her hair.
The “Black Panther” star let the publication know she was very disappointed that it “edited out and smoothed” her hair to “fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like.” On Instagram, she shared both the cover of the magazine, in which she appears with hair closely cropped to her head, in addition to what appeared to be original images, in which she has much longer hair, tied in a ponytail.
In the caption, Nyong’o described at length why she took the issue to heart.
“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,” she wrote. “ . . . Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women’s complexion, hair style and texture.”
On Friday, Grazia issued an apology.
“Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologizes unreservedly to Lupita Nyong’o,” the magazine began. The statement went on, saying that the magazine would “like to make it clear” that no one on the staff made a request to the photographer “for Nyong’o’s hair to be altered . . . nor did we alter it ourselves.”
— Grazia UK (@GraziaUK) November 10, 2017
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