Lena Dunham Says She Won’t Allow Herself to Be Photoshopped

Lena Dunham, Girls actress and creator, said she won’t allow her image to be Photoshopped anymore, speaking out about photo shoots and body image in Tuesday’s issue of her newsletter, Lenny.

“The gap between what I believe and what I allow to be done to my image has to close now,” Dunham wrote. “If that means no more fashion-magazine covers, so be it. I respect the people who create those magazines and the job they have to do. I thank them for letting me make a few appearances and for making me feel gorgeous along the way. But I bid farewell to an era when my body was fair game.”

Dunham recently accused Spanish magazine Tentaciones of altering her image on the publication’s March cover. The magazine maintained it never retouched the image, which Dunham said originally appeared in a 2013 issue of Entertainment Weekly. (Entertainment Weekly is a Time Inc. publication.) Though EW also told Dunham it had not Photoshopped the image, Dunham maintains it does not look like her.

“I didn’t have the energy or the drive to figure out at what point in its journey this image had lost my dimpled thighs or bulge of bicep fat, or whether my chin had been recrafted,” she wrote in the newsletter. “I also didn’t have any interest in shaming or blaming anyone in the process.”

Dunham described the Photoshopping practices she has become accustomed to in the years since her first photo shoot and said she wants future photos to be consistent with the way she has more honestly sought to show her body on Girls.

“If any magazines want to guarantee they’ll let my stomach roll show and my reddened cheek make an appearance, I am your girl Friday,” Dunham wrote. “Anything that will let me be honest with you. But moreover, I want to be honest with me. This body is the only one I have. I love it for what it’s given me. I hate it for what it’s denied me. And now, without further ado, I want to be able to pick my own thigh out of a lineup.”