A new book is claiming that executives used digital enhancements to make Raven-Symone’s body thinner during production of That’s So Raven.
The 38-year-old former Disney Channel star rose to fame as Raven Baxter in the early 2000s sitcom, having first landed the role at 15 and stayed on the show for four years until its end in 2007.
When her weight fluctuated in her later teenage years, co-producer and writer Dava Savel has claimed show bosses, ‘handled it in really bad ways,’ which comes just days after the actress revealed her father had passed away.
In new book ‘Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire’, Sevel said: “Disney Channel was going crazy about it.’
‘And they handled it in really bad ways. But it was never to her face,’ Sevel added in the book.
A new book is claiming that executives used digital enhancements to make Raven-Symone’s body thinner during production of That’s So Raven
The 38-year-old former Disney Channel star rose to fame as Raven Baxter in the early 2000s sitcom, having first landed the role at 15 and stayed on the show for four years until its end in 2007
Sources in the book allege that one incident occurred in in season two episode ‘That’s So Not Raven’, which saw another model picked for a runway show over Raven because of her slimmer frame.
The episode saw the character Raven try a range of diets before realizing she is perfect just as she is.
She then sent a message of body positivity when she walked the runway at the end… though those final scenes were reportedly altered to make her look thinner.
However, the book’s author Ashley Spencer writes that ‘multiple people involved in the episode’ claimed a Disney Channel executive told the visual effects team to make Raven thinner in the closing scenes.
Producer Michael Feldman said, ‘It was shameful. I don’t know how they could look at themselves and do that.’
‘The very thing that she wanted to do a story about was literally done to her. It’s still a shocking thing to me that they were that tone-deaf,’ he added.
Adam Bonnett, Disney Channel’s former head of original programming, insisted while it wasn’t something he ‘would have asked for,’ he can recall the same technique being used later in the sitcom’s run.
Remembering a school dance episode, he added: ‘There was some stuff done to make Raven[‘s attire] look more flattering in certain scenes.’
Sources in the book allege that one incident occurred in in season two episode ‘That’s So Not Raven’, which saw another model picked for a runway show over Raven because of her slimmer frame
The episode saw the character Raven try a range of diets before realizing she is perfect just as she is
She then sent a message of body positivity when she walked the runway at the end… though those final scenes were reportedly altered to make her look thinner
She would return as Raven in Raven’s Home, a spin-off that spanned six seasons from 2017 to 2023.
The actress opened up in her podcast that she had, ‘two breast reductions and lipo before I turned 18.’
‘My dad suggested strongly that I should get my breasts reduced. He was like, “So you don’t feel bad, is there anything that you want?”‘ she said.
‘I was like, “Yeah, if I get lipo, will people stop calling me fat?”‘ she admitted on the podcast last year.
