O’Day describes herself as a “world traveler” in the bio for her Instagram account, which is filled with eye-catching photos of her in such far-flung locales as Bali, Athens, Santorini, Bora Bora and the Maldives.
In captioning each of the uploads, the musician—who is seen looking achingly glamorous in the shots—shares philosophical and inspirational words with her army of more than 920,000 followers.
However, on opening each of her most recent photos, which are often accompanied by videos of the locations, visitors will now see a stream of comments from social media users asking whether O’Day, 38, has resorted to Photoshop to achieve the appearance of dream vacations.
The source of the speculation appears to have come from the TikTok account @residualdata, where O’Day has been accused of faking her photos.
“I will truly never get over people photoshopping themselves into random vacation photos,” said the TikTok user. “So here we have Aubrey O’Day, double platinum recording artist and world traveler, who apparently went on this vacation around Bali… by just Photoshopping herself into pictures.
“And it’s truly, like, every single picture. I don’t even know if she went to Indonesia, like, at all.”
The TikTok user went on to surmise that O’Day either uses content “from other content creators or photoshops herself into random promotional images with these very inspirational Instagram captions accompanying the photos. In an era where social comparison is so high and has real effects, why are we doing this?”
In the clip, O’Day’s uploads were compared with other images apparently found on Google with identical backgrounds.
While the video appears to have been deleted from the TikTok account where it originated, it has been shared on Twitter, where a number of users weighed in with their own takes.
Quote tweeting the copy of the video, writer and software engineer Gabrielle Alexa Noel wrote: “Not that I was expecting totally chill & normal content from Donald Trump Jr.’s ex, but this is so f****** weird.”
Freelance culture writer Alexis Oatman was no less damning in her assessment of the allegations as she compared the situation to a recently released film.
“Lol so this isn’t the plot to that movie ‘Not Okay’??????” Oatman commented.
While a host of social media users piled in to share comedic and disparaging takes on the photoshopping allegations, some fans defended O’Day.
“[People] photoshop all the time,” wrote one. “Who [really] cares unless you’re the type of person to compare yourself. Then that’s more a you problem.”
“And she could just like photoshopping herself in different places,” they added. “Could be fun for her, an art, manifesting.”
Another went as far as to praise Celebrity Apprentice alum O’Day for her purported decision to edit her images.
They opined: Honestly, this is the way to thrive at social media: fake it! Do the minimum efforts and get all the rewards! Aesthetics matter more than authenticity on Instagram.
Newsweek has reached out to a representative of O’Day for comment.
It’s not the first time that O’Day has weathered criticism on social media, having previously been accused of undergoing plastic surgery, though she did admit to getting lip fillers and Botox in an interview with Us Weekly in 2019.
O’Day told the publication that she was “not at all” bothered by the comments about her, adding: “When I was 17 maybe… I think the worst comment I ever read, and then I didn’t read any more, was, ‘She looks like an old leather handbag that’s been put in the dryer 15 times.’ That was one of my faves.”
“As I get older, there’s so much pressure on women to be skinny or to have tinier bodies and every little inch that I gain I’m so affected by it, and I’ve gotten to a place that I’m like, I’m healthy, I don’t take drugs, I barely drink, I exercise every day and I feel mentally happy,” she said. “I don’t need anything other than what I’m doing because it’s working for me.”