Tuesday, May 19, 2026

“SNL” Star Maya Rudolph Reveals Her Picture on Vanity Fair Hollywood Cover Is Faked: “Those are not my legs”

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The great Maya Rudolph is hosting “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. She’s been a team player all season, won an Emmy for playing Kamala Harris, and now gets to helm the show.

But on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” on Thursday night, Rudolph revealed a secret: her picture on the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue was faked. And even she seemed surprised.

On the cover, Rudolph is shown in the bottom, doing a split in a red gown.

Rudolph shook her head. “Those are my splits, apparently.” Fallon: “You did that split?” Rudolph: “Those are not my legs.” Rudolph said even her dad, former record exec Dick Rudolph, asked her about it.

Maya appears on the cover with an eclectic mix of actors including Michael B. Jordan and Spike Lee. Now that she’s given away that the pictures are manipulated, what else from that cover isn’t real?

Vanity Fair’s recent Hollywood issue covers have similar mysteries, including one in which Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon looked like they had extra hands and extra long legs. The cover was so mocked that GQ even did parody of it for their comedy issue.

This discussion occurs at 4:27.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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