Ashley Graham Defends 'Vogue' Cover With Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid: 'I Chose to Pose Like That'

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Ashley Graham sees no problem with how she posed for the March issue of Vogue magazine alongside Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and four other models.

On Wednesday, the 30-year-old model and body activist celebrated her first U.S. Vogue spread by posting a photo of the cover to Instagram, but was met with several critical comments.

In the image, Graham is the only one with her hand on her thigh while all the other models are hugging one another. Several of Graham's followers felt this was done to make her look smaller.

"I still don’t get why they made you cover your leg!!" read one comment. "And you are the only one posing like that."


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"I chose to pose like that," Graham responded. "No one told me to do anything."

Still, many of the model's followers took issue with the photo. "But why are you the only one covering your thigh?" one commenter asked. "I thought you'd stand up for that.”


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Amid the cover controversy, Graham shared another image from the photo shoot, where she's seen running down the beach with the other models, and her legs are not covered up.

This isn't the first time Graham has faced criticism over one of her photos. In an op-ed for Lena Dunham's Lenny letter in August, she spoke out against the negative comments she's received about her body.


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"To some I’m too curvy. To others I’m too tall, too busty, too loud, and, now, too small -- too much, but at the same time not enough. When I post a photo from a 'good angle,' I receive criticism for looking smaller and selling out," she wrote. "When I post photos showing my cellulite, stretch marks, and rolls, I’m accused of promoting obesity. The cycle of body-shaming needs to end. I’m over it."

In a candid interview with ET in May, Graham also opened up about the struggles she faced coming up in the modeling industry. "I think I was about 18 years old, and I already had an agent tell me that I needed to lose weight, I had clients tell me I needed to lose weight," she recalled, later adding, "I'm a woman, I am a model and I'm happy exactly where I am."


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