Vogue Beat Out Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair For the Kimye Cover

Apologies to anyone who has been moaning along with the “Vogue is dead” dirge, but it looks as though Kimye’s appearance on the cover of the fashion magazine is not the portent of end times, after all. As a matter of fact, it was a major get — according to a source, both Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair wanted the #WorldsMostTalkedAboutCouple to grace their cover page as well.

A source told WWD that Kim Kardashian was “in serious talks” with Bazaar about appearing on the cover of their February issue; she ultimately balked because Bazaar editor-in-chief Glenda Bailey thought Kim looked “overweight” and thus pushed for a beauty shot as the cover image. Bailey also wanted Terry Richardson to take the photo, which Kim didn’t like — although Terry Richardson is a friend of the Kardashian family, she apparently had “concerns” over his highly-publicized “unsavory behavior.” If this is true, it effectively means that Kim Kardashian refused to put up with the industry’s bullshit in two hugely notable ways: firstly, she rejected the practice of cropping out any non-model thin body (i.e., Adele‘s British Vogue cover, Mindy Kaling in Elle). Secondly, unlike Richardson’s army of supporters, she didn’t want to be photographed by a known (but well regarded by fashion people!!!!) sexual predator.

Kim would have covered their February issue and backed out last minute, leaving the editorial team scrambling for a new cover woman (this resulted in them choosing Daria Werbowy, a model, which is a bit surprising for them).

WWD also reports that Vanity Fair was considering a Kimye cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz like Vogue‘s was, but the editorial team was split over the decision. Vanity Fair received a lot of criticism for putting Paris Hilton on the cover of the Spanish edition in 2011, which had left several staff members “spooked,” according to an insider. All the debate ended when news leaked that Vogue had gotten her for the April issue, and that was that.