14 DAY TRIAL // If Kanye West was trying to pick a fight with famed photographer Annie Leibovitz when he practically blamed her for ruining his and Kim Kardashian’s honeymoon by not attending the wedding to do the official portraits, he sure picked the wrong woman for that.
The story goes like this: earlier this week, Kanye sat on a panel in Cannes called “Translation: Technology, Culture, and Consumer Adoption: Learning to Read the Cultural Landscape” and, in between sharing his thoughts on technology, the celebrity culture, and how he only rolls with number one people, he also spoke about the stress that he and Kim were under because they wanted to Instagram their wedding photo.
That photo went on to become the most liked ever on Instagram, and these two probably guessed it would be a big deal, so they wanted it to be perfect. Prior to that, they thought that Annie Leibovitz would attend the ceremony and double as the official photographer, with some of the shots scheduled for a later appearance in Vogue.
Leibovitz didn’t show up, with Kanye saying she bailed at the last moment because she was afraid of playing the celebrity game. That left them hanging about the wedding portraits, so they spent 4 entire days Photoshopping the photos to look as if Leibovitz had snapped them.
Strike that: they spent 4 days Photoshopping the colors of the flowers in the wall of flowers behind them in the first wedding photo, to be more exact.
Kanye didn’t mince his words: he was furious at Leibovitz because she didn’t keep her word and because this made his “girl” very upset.
However, Leibovitz’s rep would have us believe that Kanye’s words have been taken out of context and made to sound as if he was “attacking” her. That was never the case, the rep explains in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“Kanye West’s comments about Annie Leibovitz while speaking at the 2014 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival have been taken out of context and sensationalized. She would have loved to have taken their wedding portrait and was disappointed it didn’t happen,” the publicist says.
Kanye’s publicist has also gone in full damage control mode. Yes, Kanye does have a publicist: he doesn’t always do all the talking for himself, even though it might seem that way most of the times. He too is saying there’s some misunderstanding here.
“Although Kanye expressed frustration that he was not able to collaborate with Annie Leibovitz at his recent wedding, he is not assigning blame, and is not accusing Annie in any way. Unbeknownst to Kanye, she was never confirmed. Kanye and Annie’s representatives were in negotiations for weeks that were not completed by the time of the wedding,” his rep chimes in.