Vanity Fair faces backlash over all-male Hollywood Issue cover: ‘What happened to the women?’

The cover featured A-list actors from Jonathan Bailey to Michael B. Jordan

Vanity Fair has ruffled some feathers by featuring only men on the cover of its annual Hollywood issue.

The magazine’s 32nd yearly special issue consisted of three covers starring actors Jeremy Allen White, A$AP Rocky, Glen Powell, LaKeith Stanfield, Callum Turner, Riz Ahmed, Jonathan Bailey, Harris Dickinson, Andrew Garfield, Paul Mescal, Michael B. Jordan, and Austin Butler. But readers were left with one question: Where are all the women?

Mixed reactions to the cover stars poured in on social media, with some Instagram users sharing their love for the group in the comments of the magazine’s post or debating other actors that should have been featured. However, others wondered if Vanity Fair made the right choice in highlighting men over women amid the current political climate, in which women have reported a rise in misogyny following Donald Trump’s election and actors continue to raise alarms about gender inequality in Hollywood.

“What happened to the women?” one person wrote, while another added: “I have to assume vanity fair is also doing an all women cover as well right?”

“I feel like we’ve heard enough of the boys,” another joked, referencing the issue’s title “Let’s hear it for the boys.”

‘Vanity Fair’ featured all men on its 2025 Hollywood issue cover (Conde Nast)

The issue also featured interviews with each actor, and videos of the stars watching YouTube videos together. Vanity Fair didn’t immediately return The Independent’s request for comment.

Vanity Fair’s global editorial director Mark Guiducci said the all-men cover was a commentary on Hollywood itself. He explained in a statement: “Together, the actors on these three covers of Vanity Fair’s 32nd annual Hollywood Issue illustrate something different. These are not the matinee idols of early cinema, sprung fully formed, names staged and hair dyed, from the head of some Zeusian studio chief. Nor do they present as puffed-up superheroes, even if occasionally they play them onscreen.”

The statement continued, “Our new leading men are something much more radical: mere mortals. Often kind, sometimes vulnerable, each extraordinary — never before has a generation of actors been less performative, and more human. Have you ever wondered what an internet boyfriend becomes when he grows up? A movie star, it turns out. They are good guys rather than strongmen or bad boys — and we love them for it.”

Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue traditionally honors rising stars in film and television and has previously featured directors as well as actors. It is considered to kick off awards season, which also culminates with the brand’s Oscars party each year.

Only women were featured for its very first issue in 1995, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Uma Thurman, Nicole Kidman, Patricia Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julianne Moore, Angela Bassett, and Sandra Bullock on the cover.

The magazine alternated between all men and all women on the cover for its first three annual issues, before making it a co-ed affair. The theme has featured only women 11 times.