Was Beyonce Too Dark for Vanity Fair?

There is an article out saying that an inside source at Vanity Fair said that they "digitally altered Beyoncé’s image to appear several shades lighter". It mentions how Vanity Fair hasn't had a black female celebrity on it's cover since 1993(Tina Turner) and hasn't had a black male since the late nineties (Michael Jordan, Will Smith, and Chris Rock).

It seems that Vanity Fair had been suffering a sales slump or something, and felt that this may be because of their "gloomy covers".
Convinced that a series of gloomy covers has contributed to the slump, says our source, the wing-haired editor ordered his art department to lighten up its act. Unfortunately, staffers got so carried away they ended up lightening Beyoncé as well. “Everything on the cover is bright, including the white background, to make it seem as white as can be,” says the source, who claims that the pop diva’s medium-dark complexion was airbrushed to a “Jennifer Lopez shade of bronze” to fit in with the magazine’s cheery new aesthetic.
It is a very interesting article and it'll make you wonder, you should definitely click the link (that says Radar) and read it. But let me be the first to say that I don't think her skin looks any lighter than it usually looks. But I do think that it is a shame that it has been so long since Vanity Fair has had a Black person on its cover. Anyway, Vanity Fair denies the claim that they lightened Beyonce's skin. This is what Beyonce's publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, had to say:
while she had no knowledge of procedures at Vanity Fair and could not speak for the magazine, she didn’t think VF had lightened her client’s skin tone. “There are very fair-skinned black people in this world, and Beyoncé is one of them,” she said.
To see more pictures of Beyonce in Vanity Fair click here.

Radar Online