Danica Patrick's missing tattoo

Sports Illustrated is “lame,” said L.A. Snark. In the magazine’s recent swimsuit issue, the “publishers decided to digitally remove” professional race-car driver Danica Patrick’s tattoo (click here for photos). “What is the deal with that? They show nipples through sheer bikini tops and painted-on bikinis, but NOT an American flag tattoo?” What’s even more confusing is that “Danica was in last year's swimsuit issue and the tat wasn’t airbrushed out.”

It is hard to understand why Sports Illustrated decided to give “Danica Patrick the Allen Iverson treatment,” said Sports by Brooks. You could see “why a magazine would want to remove an unsightly mole or maybe even too many freckles, but what exactly is wrong with a tattoo?” Still, “we all know that magazines airbrush the ever-living hell out of photos before publishing them in print."

And there’s a difference between how Sports Illustrated handled Danica Patrick’s tattoo, said Jack Ryan in The Post Chronicle, and how “Hoop Magazine controversially airbrushed one of Allen Iverson's tattoos for its cover shot” eight years ago. Hoop “did its Photoshopping without Iverson knowing,” while SI “had Patrick's consent”—she was obviously okay with it.

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