Cindy Crawford speaks out for the first time about her leaked unretouched photo

Cindy Crawford has spoken out for the first time about the unauthorised release of a supposedly unretouched photograph of herself. The model hit the news earlier this year when a photo purporting to be a pre-Photoshop version of a Marie Claire picture of her went viral.

While many women saw the less-than-perfect image as a positive step, Cindy felt its release was malicious.

'I felt blindsided,' she told Elle Canada. 'I was very conflicted, to be honest.'

The unflattering image showed a then 48-year-old Crawford revealing a less-than-flat stomach while dressed only in her lingerie. 

In the image the 49-year-old had wrinkles and sagging skin around her stomach area. 

The photo had allegedly been digitally manipulated to exaggerate any slight flaws.

'That picture didn’t reflect what I saw when I looked in the mirror—even in the worst dressing-room lighting,' she explained. 

Cindy's face in its natural state in a leaked, unphotoshopped picture that  went viral. 

But Cindy felt she was unable to speak out against it, because so many women saw it as a positive step.

'It put me in a tough spot: I couldn’t come out against it because I’m rejecting all these people who felt good about it, but I also didn’t embrace it because it wasn’t real - and even if it were real, I wouldn’t have wanted it out there,' she said.

'I felt really manipulated and conflicted, so I kept my mouth shut.' 

Cindy said she didn't understand why seeing a bad picture of her should make people feel better.

'Why would seeing a bad picture of me make other people feel good? I know my body, and I know it’s not perfect, but maybe I have a false body image; maybe I think I look better than I do. I think that most women are hard on themselves.'

However she did admit: 'Sometimes, the images that women see in magazines make them feel inferior—even though the intention is never to make anyone feel less.

'So somehow seeing a picture of me was like seeing a chink in the armour. Whether it was real or not isn’t relevant, although it’s relevant to me. I don’t try to present myself as perfect.'

When the picture went viral celebrity snapper John Russo said in a statement to ABC News that the image - from a 2013 cover shoot with Marie Claire Mexico - was 'stolen or unlawfully accessed and then altered and distributed to the media.'

Russo added: 'It has been falsely claimed that this photograph represents an un-retouched image of Cindy Crawford. This is not true.

'It is a fraudulent altered version of my photograph. I am grateful that this fact has been brought to the public's attention and that corrections are being run in the media.'