Kate Winslet strips for Vanity Fair, 'furious' over airbrush claims

Tabloid reports claim Kate Winslet's figure was digitally altered for a Vanity Fair photo spread. Photo / Supplied

Titanic star Kate Winslet is furious over tabloid reports that racy photos of her in the latest issue of Vanity Fair were vigorously airbrushed to make her look thinner.

Several British newspapers have questioned whether Winslet's enviably svelte figure in the photo spread for the December issue of the magazine has been digitally enhanced.

Feral speculation or not, the indignant star has hit back at the mounting retouching claims. "Kate is furious at suggestions that her body has been airbrushed," her rep tells people.com.

"She is in terrific shape and what you see is how she looks or she would never have agreed to pose for those shots."

In Kate shape

In what has to be her most provocative photoshoot yet, Winslet, 33, is seen posing seductively in stockings and stilettos over a fur-covered chaise longue. While on the cover she appears nude, with her legs crossed in nothing but a trench coat.

The images are believed to be a tribute to actress Catherine Deneuve in the 1967 film Belle de Jour.

But critics have been quick to point out that there's one key ingredient missing from her latest photoshoot - her womanly curves.

*Warning: Some of these images are racy of nature. If the sight of a buttock in soft focus rattles your cage, then look away. Otherwise, put down your knitting and click on...

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Kate Winslet, Vanity Fair

The MailOnline certainly isn't pulling any punches as it reports of a "barely recognisable, vampish Winslet", whose first digitally enhanced spread for a magazine shoot in 2003 provoked her disgust.

No judgements there then.

Winslet posed for a series of snaps for glossy mag GQ in February 2003, and later apologised after is emerged that they had been digitally enhanced to make her look slimmer.

The self-deprecating actress, who had always spoken openly and publicly about embracing her fuller figure, said: "I don't want people to think I was a hypocrite and had suddenly gone and lost 30 pounds, which is something I would never do. And more importantly I don't want to look like that."

Britain's Telegraph newspaper has also questioned whether the star has been photoshopped for the Vanity Fair shoot; but hasn't gone to the extremes that the MailOnline has by drafting in an expert to analyse the snaps for evidence of tampering.

According to the expert, wrinkles have been removed from her face, hands and feet.

In the magazine, Kate said her skin is far from perfect, but says she has been able to hide her flaws through the use of makeup.

"Mothers [at my children's' school] are going to read this article and they're all absolutely great, but I know when I walk into that classroom in the morning, even if it's for a split second, at some point I'm being checked out. And some of them will even say to me, 'OK, what's the secret with the skin?' At which point I'm like, 'Oh my God, there's no secret. I have makeup on,'" she revealed in the magazine.

"And by the way, since I turned 30, I've had an acne problem on my chin. I'm just like everybody else-I just know how to cover it. If you'd like me to show you how, I'd be more than happy."

A spokesperson for Vanity Fair admitted that there had been "a minimal amount of retouching" done to the photos, but that her body had "not been changed at all".

Meanwhile, Halle Berry, who was recently voted one of Hollywood's 'hottest mums', had this to say about fellow thesp Winslet in Elle magazine:

"Kate Winslet is always naked, sitting on a toilet, running buck-naked. She's free. I want to be the kind of actress who can really be comfortable with my body like that."

Naked, on a toilet, running buck-naked? Is there something Freudian about your thoughts, Berry?

What do you think? Has Winslet's airbrushing gone a stroke too far?

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