Solange Receives Apology From The Evening Standard After It Photoshopped Her Hair

Update 21 October 4.30pm GMT: The Evening Standard has offered its "unreserved apologies" to Solange for photoshopping her hair on its latest magazine cover.

The London newspaper said it had edited out the singer's crown of braids for "layout purposes," but admitted that "plainly we made the wrong call."

Solange called out the magazine on Instagram shortly after it was published by sharing the original, non-airbrushed image with the caption "dtmh" - a reference to her song "Don't Touch My Hair."

The magazine's decision was widely criticised on Twitter, especially since Solange emphasised in the accompanying interview how much braiding means to her. She described it as an "act of beauty, an act of convenience and an act of tradition," and hailed the process as "its own art form."

The Evening Standard said in a statement shared on its website: "We were delighted to have the chance to interview the wonderful Solange Knowles and photograph her for this week’s edition of ES magazine.

"It is therefore a matter of great regret that the finished cover artwork of the magazine caused concern and offence. The decision to amend the photograph was taken for layout purposes but plainly we made the wrong call and we have offered our unreserved apologies to Solange."

The apology article - and its accompanying tweet - shows the original image including Solange's crown of braids.

Original Story: Solange has called out the Evening Standard Magazine for photoshopping her hair on its latest cover. For the shoot, the singer wore a white ruffled dress, statement pearl earrings and a blonde braided hairstyle – which the magazine subsequently edited out.

The artist, who is known for celebrating the beauty of natural hair and clearly hadn't been told about the change, took to Instagram to criticise the publication when she realised what had happened. She captured the photo "dtmh", an abbreviation of “Don’t Touch My Hair,” the name of a song from her much lauded album A Seat At The Table. She also posted an Instagram Story of the cover with a hand-drawn ring around the photoshopped portion of the image.

Much of the magazine's cover feature on the artist is also dedicated to the topic of hair, making the photoshopping decision seem doubly curious. The piece, headlined “Solange: ‘I Miss Out On Chances By Wanting Control Over My Body’,” makes clear how important hair braiding is to the star and she is quoted as calling it an "act of beauty, an act of convenience and an act of tradition", and "its own art form".

The singer's fans also noticed the irony of the edit, commenting angrily on the magazine's Instagram post of the cover. @wanguc wrote: "I live in the UK and followed you guys yesterday as I thought you were opening doors and conversations into the psychology of black hair. Guess it was the opposite." Meanwhile, @claudine_c said: "Why did you photoshop her hair out? #dtmh y’all don’t really understand her if you thought this was the right move."

The publication hasn't yet commented on the furore or revealed why it digitally removed part of the artist's hair. The online version of the story lists Lizzie Edmonds and Angelica Bastien as the writers of the piece but Bastien, like Solange, was unhappy with how the feature turned out.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the New York magazine writer said she had an unpleasant experience working on it and was publicly disowning the piece, which "was a fiasco despite my efforts".

"I told my editors to take my name off of the byline because they distorted my work and reporting in ways that made me very uncomfortable," she continued. "Which was heartbreaking given how much work I put into it and my interest in Solange as an artist.

"I am writing this because I noticed my name on the online edition of the piece and want to be clear I didn't approve of it."

Daria Kobayashi Ritch, the photographer behind the image, also posted the original on Instagram on Thursday in light of the controversy. When asked about the photoshopping in the comments she denied responsibility, saying "the magazine did".