Does an unaltered photo show the true height difference between Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter? No, that's not true: The photo of Swift and Carpenter together in New York City has been digitally edited. The edit did not alter the size of either singer in the original photo but achieved the illusion by shifting Carpenter's position on the sidewalk. Originally Carpenter was farther from the camera than Swift but was digitally shifted to appear to be the same distance from the camera -- making the size difference between the two appear greater than it is already.
The altered photo appeared in a post (archived here) by @TonySneedprano on X on April 1, 2026. It was captioned:
this looks like a shot from a david lynch film
This is the altered image as it appeared on X:
(Image source: @TonySneedprano post on X.com.)
Using Google Lens reverse image search, Lead Stories identified a slideshow of photos posted on Just Jared on Nov. 7, 2025. The slideshow shows photos of Swift and Carpenter walking across a sidewalk near a corner. The altered photo in question, with the lamppost in the background in line with Swift's head, appears unaltered in the Just Jared slideshow as the 13th slide.
Lead Stories produced the GIF (pictured below) by scaling the original image of Swift to match the altered image. The GIF demonstrates how Carpenter's outline was cut and shifted to a different position in the photo. Carpenter's size does not change in this edit, only her position. The people in the background have also been removed from the scene.
(Image source: GIF with photos from post on X and Just Jared.)
