A Black model who was surprised to find a white influencer appeared to have stolen her picture and stitched her own face onto it has claimed the woman’s apology is dishonest.
Last month, Lauren Blake Boultier, a white influencer with 1.6 million followers, shared a picture of her, seemingly at the Miami Open, in tennis whites and a green and white scarf with a matching Louis Vuitton bag.
But rather than complimenting her on her outfit, Instagram users instead pointed out the image looked awfully similar to a 2024 snap shared by Black model Tatiana Elizabeth.
In fact, it quickly became obvious that Lauren had digitally appeared to have stuck her own face onto Tatiana’s body.
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Understandably a bit taken aback, Tatiana wrote on Threads: “The weirdest part about this is that it’s not even an AI influencer. This is a real person who used AI to put her head on my body.
“She geotagged MIAMI as if she’s at the Miami Open. When my photo was taken at the US Open two years ago.”
“I’m not born yesterday”
Lauren, after hastily deleting the image, blamed ‘a third-party AI content agency’ she was working with, while simultaneously taking ‘full responsibility’ for the incident.
She added in an Instagram post: “I will have more oversight with my agency to ensure my content is handled with the integrity and respect it deserves moving forward.
“I am deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused the original creator and the community at large.”
Speaking out yesterday (2 April), however, it looks like Tatiana isn’t buying this.
When asked by TMZ if she believes Lauren’s explanation, she said: “Absolutely not. I mean, I’m not born yesterday.”
She went on to say that, while we’re all getting our bearings with AI, you do still need to give an image generator a prompt, so she reckons at some stage someone purposefully fed her Instagram post into the AI tool.
She said: “I think [Lauren is] just trying to avoid blame. I don't think it's coming from a sincere place.
“I think she just wants the situation to blow over and to get back to scheduled programming.
“I don't think she was honest. I don't think she is authentic in her apology. I think she's just saying what she thinks she needs to say in order to move past this.”
“Completely and utterly disrespectful”
Tatiana has also shared on her TikTok that Lauren seemingly first reached out to her over DM saying a full apology was on the way, but there was ‘just a lot of moving parts rn’.
Lauren then appeared to send another message saying she and her family had been hit with ‘hateful’ comments, adding that she’d never seen Tatiana’s picture before her team sent it to her.
The message reads: “You don’t deserve this. You are a hell of a woman, all for the girls, and I feel awful about it.”
On TikTok, Tatiana slammed her, calling the stealing of her content ‘completely and utterly disrespectful’ and saying of Lauren ‘I don’t think she is fully understanding the weight of what she did’.
What makes the whole thing worse is that Tatiana was personally invited to the US Open by Serena Williams, which is when her original picture was taken, after building up her following over ten years.
She said: “You can’t just take that moment away, put your head on it, and act like it’s OK.”
LADbible has contacted Lauren Blake Boultier for a comment.
Topics: Social Media, Instagram, Artificial Intelligence
Simon Fearn