Sources at popular tabloid The Sun report today that Kanye West has asked Getty Images to erase all of the pictures of him taken during the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief. The images were nothing offensive, just West performing in a leather kilt. Earlier this week Kanye was interviewed by Angie Martinez on New York radio station Hot 97 regarding the rapper’s placement as 7th best MC of 2012 as decided by MTV. West blamed his fall from the top on his romance with Kim Kardashian and his fashion choices, namely his love of leather kilts.
“They don’t like Givenchy-Kanye,” he said. “They don’t like Kanye in a kilt. They don’t like Kanye in a relationship.”
Earlier today many media sources revealed all instances of West in the kilt have been scrubbed from popular celebrity image provider, Getty Images. The 12-12-12 concert was not the first time he had worn the dramatic piece. It was a popular choice during the "Watch the Throne" tour with Jay-Z. It can even be seen in the music video for their most popular song off of that album, "Brothers in Paris." It seems that West has had enough of the backlash associated with this piece of clothing. After the concert, his twitter feed blew up with insults all about the kilt and it has been a source of many jokes since then.
Getty Images did confirm they were asked to remove the photos, but did not reveal any reason for doing so.
However, he is not the first artist to contact Getty Images and other websites to remove photos from their pages. Beyonce’s publicist did the same thing after her amazing Super Bowl performance. The publicist said she did not want any unflattering photos of Queen Bey floating around the internet.
Is this a good idea or is it completely ridiculous? Can a celebrity really expect to control their image online? Sound off in the comments.
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