Karoline Leavitt, Vanity Fair and the lip-filler photo: ‘Physical appearance is everything to Trump’
A “revealing” new photoshoot of members of Trump’s top team has caused waves – most notably a photo of his press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Is it, as the photographer claims, an honest image or something more “mean and brutal”?
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In brief…
- A Vanity Fair photo of Karoline Leavitt has caused waves for showing the White House press secretary with lip-filler injection marks in her lips, and bad skin.
- The News Agents ask if this is simply “mean”, or whether it could rock the heart of Donald Trump’s image-obsessed MAGA movement.
- Emily Maitlis says the man behind the camera, Christopher Anderson, broke an unwritten rule between photographer and model, in that they are both trying to get the best from any photoshoot.
What’s the story?
Love her or loathe her, most people can probably agree that White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt was screwed over by the photos used to promote a Vanity Fair feature about the Trump administration.
Visible pores, marks in her lips where she’s had filler injected, a tight close-up. This is not the image high-profile people might expect from a high-class glossy magazine shoot.
Leavitt hasn’t commented on the photo, but plenty of other people have, with some criticising the 28-year-old’s appearance, and others saying the image has been shared to deliberately mock the way a young woman looks.
“It is quite noticeable that the very first bits of social media coverage that Vanity Fair put out was not the wide shots from this interview, but these incredibly intimate, unforgiving close ups of each member of Trump's team,” says Emily Maitlis.
She says it raises a question of whether this is “gossipy, mean and brutal”, and if this could be the “undoing” of those in Donald Trump’s inner circle, when they are seen to be less perfect than he imagines them to be.
Others interviewed, and photographed, for the Vanity Fair article include JD Vance, Susie Wiles and Steven Miller – but none of these senior staffers have generated the discussion Leavitt, and her lip-filler marks, have.
What the photographer has said
The images were shot by renowned photographer Christopher Anderson, who has responded to criticism in an interview with The Washington Post.
"It was my attempt to circumnavigate the stage-managed image of politics and cut through the image that the public relations team wants to be presented, and get at something that feels more revealing about the theatre of politics," he said.
"People seem to be shocked that I didn’t use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks.
"I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch out those things."
Is this The News Agents, or The Celeb Agents?
For anyone thinking The News Agents has descended into a world of “filler gossip”, Emily says this goes much deeper than that.
"It's about pleasing the president. It's about pleasing the man at the centre," she says.
"If he sees those pictures in Vanity Fair, if he sees them online, does his perception of those close to him – of Karoline Leavitt – change? Does he say: 'Hang on, I thought I had this perfect Barbie'.
"Does it actually change whether he thinks she is as good at her job as he did a week ago?"
Could the Vanity Fair photoshoot damage Leavitt's career?
Ice-cold and immaculate, Leavitt has hosted press briefings in the White House press office since Trump returned to power in 2025 – previously only facing criticism for her responses to journalists who dare criticise Trump and her determination to support his narrow views on big issues.
"Donald Trump is very particular about physical appearance," says Jon Sopel.
"He makes very disparaging remarks about people being too fat, too small, too ugly or too this, too that.
"Physical appearance is everything to him."
Emily Maitis compares the discussion around Leavitt, her lips and the Vanity Fair photoshoot to similar conversation around actor Sydney Sweeney, currently promoting the third season of Euphoria, and women who are perceived to have the "MAGA-aesthetic" – which some say Sweeney has adopted.
She believes with this shoot, Anderson has broken an unwritten rule that exists between a photographer and his model – especially when it's a woman.
"If you sign up to do a glossy magazine, do you expect a glossy photo shoot? You probably do," she says.
"If you do a photo shoot for a magazine, every woman I know knows the tricks – please don't shoot from underneath, please shoot from on high, let me check the shots as I go along.
"There is an unspoken relationship with the photographer that you're both trying to get the best out of this shot."