Elle's Pregnant Jessica Simpson Cover: Too Racy for Grocery Shopping?
Is a pregnant woman's body not safe for supermarkets? An Arizona grocery store is being accused of censoring an Elle magazine cover featuring a very pregnant Jessica Simpson in her birthday suit. Issues of the glossy are getting the Hustler Magazine treatment, placed behind a make-shift "shield" on the rack so only Simpson's face peaks out, according to Jezebel.
A reader to the site sent in the photo of the cardboard-covered issue in a Tucson Safeway. It's unclear whether a shop clerk or a patron provided the cover-up. Jezebel's Cassie Murdoch followed up with the store's manager who claimed not to be aware of the cardboard shield. But at least one person was offended by the image.
"True, her breasts are somewhat exposed, but it's not too different than what you could see on this year's Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition cover," writes Murdoch. "And what do you think the chances are that they covered that up?"
For the record, the naked pregnant cover shot is nothing new. Demi Moore kicked it off on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991. That issue was banned by three grocery chains in North Carolina (including the Winn-Dixie), but overall it sold gangbusters at newsstands.
"It's just a pregnant woman. I guess it's what's in your mind," Marvin Bate, a Utah-based magazine stand manager promoting Demi's issue, told the Deseret News in '91. Now, more than two decades later, celebrities' favorite pregnancy pose is still too much for some people to handle.
So is the image of a happy couple and their newborn child, if that couple happens to be two men. Elton John and David Furnish's baby photo on the cover of US Weekly was placed behind a family shield in Arkansas last year. So file 'pregnancy' and 'family' under too-hot-for-grocery-shopping.
See more: Pregnant celebrities chic in heels
In the category of "least likely to be censored" are heterosexual nude women who aren't pregnant. Remember when Bar Rafaeli posed nude on the cover of Esquire the same month Sacha Baron Cohen in the character of Bruno posed nude for GQ? Guess which one didn't get banned from the racks? Similarly, a barely-legal, barely-dressed Jessica Biel showed a lot more chest than Simpson when she posed for Gear back in 2000. But no baby bump, no shield.
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