Cover Frenzy: Lil Kim & Photographer At Odds Over “Heavily Photoshopped” Ebony Magazine Cover

Harpo, who dis woman? That’s what many people are asking after seeing Lil Kim on the cover of one of Ebony Magazine’s five commemorative covers.

Ebony Magazine has been knocking their covers out of the park lately but is now experiencing a rare miss after featuring the Queen Bee on the cover.

Lil Kim’s loyal fans immediately began clowning the iconic Black publication and anyone responsible for the cover that features the Brooklyn rapper with a heavily photoshopped look.

Ebony’s now former photography director, Keith Major, took to Instagram and hopped in a Shade Room post about the cover, telling a commenter, “Man, she wanted to be in control of the retouching so this is what we got,” Page Six reports.

Lil Kim immediately called CAP on Major’s comment, writing in an Instagram Stories post:

“Who is this?! Cuz that’s not the photo I approved or any other content they’ve put out. I always told Ebony it looked like a painting but they didn’t wanna listen. They said they loved it. It’s the sabotage for me. The funny sh*t about this is that this is THEIR retoucher!,” Lil Kim wrote.

In a second IG Stories post, Lil Kim shared a comment in response to Major from a person named Rayeesuh, who is a “social media to the stars” per her bio, broke her silence because “there is so much more to the story,” so she couldn’t remain silent.

“How about we talk about how your photos exposure was so low we couldn’t even salvage them. At the end of the day it was EBONY’s retouchers who edited the photo. I also heard you got fired after this sh*t. Let’s talk about that, sir.”

Ebony Magazine Seemingly Responds

The original cover is still up on Ebony’s Instagram page, and they also shared some BTS footage of Lil Kim talking about participating in the shoot and a video of the photos being taken.

Social media is reacting to the cover, of course, “Whoever did the editing need to be fired,” one person wrote.

“As a publication, you should know what’s unacceptable. this cover is not it and doesn’t represent Kim or the magazine well,” said another, per HipHopDX. 

Welp.

Lil Kim joins fellow Hip-Hop stars Swizz Beatz, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, and Rick Ross to get commemorative covers.

It sucks this cover issue is spoiling such a dope moment celebrating 50 years of Hip-Hop.

Photo: Courtesy of / EBONY