The Chive Is Sorry for Using Anorexic Woman's Pic in Weight Loss Post

The Chive, who yesterday used a photo of a woman in the depths of anorexia for a post on “amazing” weight loss transformations, has apologized to the woman. Kinda. An apology that’s like, “Woah, how did that picture get in there? We guess we’ll never know!”

Anne Marie Sengillo posted a photo series of her recovery from anorexia in two places: Imgur and a subreddit called r/ProgressPics. In both places, the text clearly states that she was suffering from an eating disorder and that the photos chart her seven years of trying to get better. In their apology, the Chive writes that they discovered the photo “somewhere” and were unaware that Sengillo was very sick in the “inspiring” after-photo they chose:

We had previously discovered the photo somewhere out there in the internet echo chamber which contained no frame of reference whatsoever. We obviously had no idea Anne Marie had anorexia but that doesn’t excuse the action at all. It was a mistake, completely unintentional, and the photo was removed the second we found out about it.

I mean, that’s not true. At all. It’s sort of laughably not true. But the Chive did indeed remove the photo fairly quickly, and, they are “deeply sorry.” They add:

A few days ago, Anne Marie took the time to put together an inspirational gallery about how she overcame the disorder, even after relapsing. There is an amazing positive in all this and we’re proud to share her story with the Chive Community and we hope it helps others who might be suffering from the disorder.

Yes. The “inspirational gallery” that they pulled her photos from in the first place.