14 DAY TRIAL // Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon are featured in the latest print issue of OK! magazine (the UK version), in an intimate family portrait meant to celebrate her pregnancy – sans clothes. As we speak, glossy magazines and celebrity blogs are questioning the singer’s decision to pose for the shots.
It’s not that pregnancy is not an extraordinary moment that every woman and every couple should celebrate; it’s not even that Mariah isn’t gorgeous, PopEater says, citing reports now making the rounds online.
However, there’s something about the spread (which you can see here) that screams “creepy” and “wrong,” word online has it.
For starters, while countless other celebrities have also bared it all for pregnancy shots (from Demi Moore to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera), the pics of Mariah and Nick simply seem too personal to be made public.
There’s the cover shot, of Nick covering Mariah’s breasts from the back, in which he seems to be groping her, and not protecting her, as it was probably meant to look.
The lighting is bad, the makeup and styling are bad, and the poses are awkward and too revealing, various celebrity e-zines point out.
“There is something about her recent cover shots that just gives us the willies and we’re not alone. Fashion and photo editors, stylists and designers have been emailing us to say they too are a little creeped out by the pics,” Popeater writes.
“I think it’s the art direction,” Lauren Sherman of Fashionista says. It simply doesn’t send across a message of happiness and parental bliss. It’s weird.
“The black background is so morbid, and she’s not smiling. Then the white text is so shocking and in-your-face. It looks gross – if you’re going to do a naked pregnancy pic, you’ve got to give it some lightness,” Sherman speculates.
The pose is also very wrong, with Nick groping Mariah and, at the same time, sniffing at her hair.
“I honestly don't get it. I think it could have come out artistically better if Nick Cannon had taken the picture on his iPhone,” Megan O’Brien of MegsMakeup.com states for the same e-zine.
“What is that pose she’s doing? It’s not only unnatural but painful looking. I feel like she’s going to start dancing a pregnant vogue,” O’Brien adds.
Other bloggers believe that it’s the fact that Mariah chose to do the spread for two of the “most budget” celebrity magazines that led to the bad styling and the disastrous pics.
Whereas Demi did a similar shot for Vanity Fair, while Britney landed the cover of Harper’z Bazaar to unveil her pregnant body in all its natural glory, Mariah went for Life & Style and OK! magazine (and not even the US version).
As The Stir writes, she could sneeze and get headlines in better publications than these.
While all this is going on, Nick and Mariah are keeping mum on the topic, which isn’t to say you should too: speak your mind on the spread in the comments section below.