‘Anything to demean’: Trump calls fake news on bad photo of himself

United States President Donald Trump insisted a photo of himself on Twitter that made him look poorly spray-tanned was “photoshopped, obviously.”

The photo, which began making its rounds on the internet on Friday evening, is a close-up of the president on the White House Lawn.

In the photo Trump appears to be turning right to face the camera, hair blowing in apparent wind, revealing a defined tan-line between his face and hairline commonly found in uneven spray tans.

“More Fake News,” Trump says in his tweet. “This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!”

The photo was uploaded by an unverified account called White House Photos, which claims to be run by photographer William Moon. It has since gone viral, inspiring comments, questions and memes.

According to Moon, the moment was captured while the president was walking across the South Lawn of the White House after returning from Charlotte, N.C., on Friday.

In a later tweet, Moon said: “This picture was never photoshopped, but used the Apple smartphone’s photo app to adjust the color of the picture.”

Not much is known about Moon, but he appears to be a U.S. politics devotee who attends White House events and takes pictures of the president. According to his account, Moon describes himself as “White House Correspondent, Journalist, Photographer, Poet and Pesco Vegetarian.”

The photographer has been posting photos of Trump from the unverified Twitter account since 2017, and it now has almost 20,000 followers.

An earlier video from 2017 posted to the account from a press briefing hosted by former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders indicates that at some point, Moon had White House clearing but Global News has been unable to confirm whether it still exists.

The Associated Press published several photos from that day, and while the hues aren’t as extreme as Moon’s, they do seem to correspond with the ones posted onto the White House Photos account.

Since the photo went viral, reactions to Trump’s tan lines have been met with shock, varying degrees of humour as well as Twitter users trying to discern Trump’s true skin colour.