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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have just made the Time 100 Most Influential list for 2021, and as a result, have featured on one of the publication’s front covers.
However, the front cover, shot by photographer Pari Dukovic, seems to have caused a stir on social media (are we really surprised?) as some people are criticizing it for being “overly airbrushed”, while others seem to have issues with the way the couple are posing. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are a controversial couple, to say the least, so it doesn’t surprise us to learn that their magazine cover – and their inclusion on the list in general – has had mixed reactions from the public.
“The airbrush is doing some heavy lifting there,” one Twitter user wrote, while another said: “The cover looks so fake… oh wait it’s because they are.” “Terrible retouching job. They look CGI,” another added, while someone else suspected that Prince Harry’s hairline wasn’t as it appears in real life. “Is Harry wearing a rug? Or just overdone the air brushing?” the social media user wondered.
The airbrushing wasn’t the only issue that the internet had with the cover, as the way the couple are posing, in particular, the way the 37-year-old Prince is standing behind the 40-year-old former Suits actress also sparked a lot of controversy. “Who approved this shot? Is he standing? Is he sitting? Is he holding on to her shoulder so he doesn’t fall? Why would you make such lovely looking people look like this?” a concerned Twitter user asked. “Its like he’s cowering behind her,” another commented.
What do you think? Love them or loathe them (it's ok to be somewhere in-between too) there's no denying that the Duke and Duchess – who are parents to two-year-old son Archie Harrison, and three-month-old daughter Lilibet Diana – are influential. Perhaps even more so since officially stepping down as senior royals on March 31 2020 and moving to California.
Time's most influential list is traditionally divided into six categories – icons, pioneers, titans, artists, leaders, and innovators – and Harry and Meghan have been listed under the icons category for their ongoing charity work with their Archewell Foundation. Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world features pairings of the influential people and guest contributors that the publication selects to write about them. Chef José Andrés, who founded the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, was appointed by Time to write about the former royal couple, and in his essay, he said that they "give voice to the voiceless" and have "compassion for people they don’t know."
"They give voice to the voiceless through media production. Hand in hand with nonprofit partners, they take risks to help communities in need—offering mental-health support to Black women and girls in the US, and feeding those affected by natural disasters in India and the Caribbean," Andrés wrote. "In a world where everyone has an opinion about people they don’t know, the duke and duchess have compassion for the people they don’t know," he added.
What do you think of the controversial Harry and Meghan cover? And what do you think about their inclusion on the list?
