Reese Witherspoon and Oprah on vanity fair cover

@DoHoBob/Twitter

Reese Witherspoon has too many legs on new ‘Vanity Fair’ cover

And Oprah may have three hands.

Photo of Christine Friar 

Christine Friar

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Posted on Jan 26, 2018   Updated on May 22, 2021, 3:16 am CDT

Thursday afternoon, Vanity Fair revealed its 2018 Hollywood cover by celebrity portrait master Annie Leibovitz, but there was one small snag. Well three, actually.

The all-star, fold-out magazine cover features some of the world’s most famous actors decked out in their formalwear. Tom Hanks poses in a tux next to Michael B. Jordan, who’s standing next to Zendaya, who’s leaning over Jessica Chastain. You get the idea: Everyone’s there, and they look good.

But it seems like someone forgot a few Photoshop edits before the cover went to press. Within minutes, discerning fans on Twitter noticed Reese Witherspoon seems to have three legs in the portrait.

Witherspoon is perched on the side of Oprah’s chair with her arm around her A Wrinkle in Time co-star in an embrace for the photo. Two legs are seen crossed and tucked underneath Witherspoon’s body, which is a pose that definitely showcases her calves but fails to address the physics of the situation. If neither of her feet is fully touching the ground, and her torso is unbent, and she’s not quite sitting, where exactly is her center of gravity? Is she kneeling on the chair’s arm somehow? Is she leaning really hard on Oprah?

But if you look closer you’ll see a third leg attached to Witherspoon’s body like a kickstand—and it’s standing upright. In the same slit of the dress where you can spot Witherspoon’s side-saddle calves, you can clearly see a standing thigh that leads down to a standing calf. The angle the leg is at clearly explains how she was able to achieve the pose in the photo, but it was apparently less aesthetically pleasing than the crossed legs, and the magazine opted to edit it out. They just forgot to, ya know, do that last part.

Fans debated whether it could somehow be an optical illusion or a shadow situation.

https://twitter.com/GenusUnknown/status/956563151633469440

But the consensus seemed to be “three legs.” When one fan shared some of Vanity Fair‘s outtakes from the shoot as evidence that the leg was most likely a Photoshop error, she accidentally unveiled new anomalies too. In one “candid” photo of Oprah and Witherspoon laughing together, Oprah has three hands:

https://twitter.com/tnwhiskeywoman/status/956597343524216833

It’s not a perfect corroboration, but it at least confirms that whoever was on Photoshop duty for this Vanity Fair shoot was playing fast and loose with celebrity organs.

For Witherspoon and Oprah’s parts, they’ve embraced each other’s extra limbs.

What a friendship.

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*First Published: Jan 26, 2018, 9:03 am CST

Christine Friar

Christine Friar is a writer and editor in New York who focuses on streaming entertainment and internet culture. Her work has appeared in the Awl, the Fader, New York Magazine, Paper Magazine, Vogue, Elle, and more.

Christine Friar