According to TMZ, the lawyer of Crawford’s photographer said in a letter that the photograph was “stolen and altered” to make her midsection and thighs look less than flattering.
John Russo, the photographer who says he took the picture for the Marie Claire Mexico photoshoot, issued a statement in the letter saying:
It is a fraudulent altered version of my photograph. I am grateful that this fact has been brought to the public’s attention and that corrections are being run in the media.
The reportedly fake un-retouched photo made its way around the Internet receiving praise from women around the world when a British journalist posted it to Twitter last month. The tweet has been removed.
The photos she took for the December 2013 shoot had her stomach covered up, and the video only showed her from the chest up.
In response, Crawford’s husband, Rande Gurber, recently shared a more realistic photo of her on vacation in a bikini similar to this one.
