The Danish fashion magazine Cover found itself in the centre of a storm of controversy Thursday after a photo of an ultra-thin model was heavily criticized on social media. 

 

After backlash on Facebook and Twitter, where the hashtag #covergate was spawned, the magazine apologized for its “huge mistake”.

 

“I’ve made magazines for more than ten years and this time unfortunately I made a huge mistake, which I would like to apologize for,” the magazine’s founder, Malene Malling, told TV2, adding that the photo “should not have been published”. 

 

Although the magazine apologized, it continued to face criticism both for portraying a model so thin that she appears malnourished and for allegedly deleting negative comments on its Facebook page. 

 

Politicians even jumped into the fray, including Tax Minister Benny Englebrecht. 

 

"I seriously thought that the fashion industry had understood that anorexia is a problem that should be taken seriously," he wrote on Twitter.