Vanity Fair France has issued a public apology after editing a photo of Guy Pearce.
The Australian actor walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival wearing a Palestinian flag pin, which was not visible in the magazine’s image.
The move was quickly called out on social media and labelled by some as an attempt at censorship.
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The Neighbours and Momento star was at the famed film festival on the French Riviera to promote his new movie The Shrouds.
As part of his appearance, he posed for a series of actor portraits featured in Vanity Fair France last week.
Pearce, who was featured alongside stars like Sebastian Stan and Bella Hadid, sported a black Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo in his portrait, smiling straight at the camera.
But social media sleuths detected an issue. A small Palestinian flag pin, which Pearce had been wearing on his lapel throughout Cannes, was missing from the photograph.
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A white, red, black and green bracelet — the colours of the Palestinian flag — was still visible on his wrist.
A different photo, featuring the pin, was posted to the magazine’s Instagram the same day the article published.
Pearce hasn’t directly addressed the Photoshopping of his image as yet.
However the Priscilla star reiterated his support for the Palestinian cause in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after the Vanity Fair France controversy erupted online.
“Palestinians are being murdered as we speak,” he began.
“Displaced, traumatised, ruined. The lives and futures of Palestinian children are being eradicated by a vengeful tyrant.”
Pearce did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
The sleuthing went viral on sites like X and TikTok, prompting the magazine to replace the image with the un-edited photo and issue a correction to the article.
“A previous version of this image was posted on the site, the original version was this one, posted simultaneously on Instagram,” Vanity Fair France wrote beneath the picture.
“We sincerely apologise.”
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An apology was also posted to social media.
“We have published by mistake a modified version of this photo on the site,” the magazine wrote in French on X in response to a viral post criticising the edited photo.
“The original version was posted on Instagram the same day. We have rectified our mistake and we apologise.”
It’s unclear why a modified version of the picture existed in the first place. Condé Nast, Vanity Fair’s parent company, did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
– Reported with CNN.
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