Selena Gomez is 22 years old, but like so many stars who came off the Disney assembly line, she's maintained a fresh-faced look that could easily enable her to pass for a middle school student.
Naturally, it's not just Selena's youthful appearance that's creating controversy, but the youthful way she's styled in the photo:
"Um...does anyone think Selena Gomez looks like a child prostitute on the cover of that magazine," wrote one Twitter user. "It's lind of disturbing."
"Selena Gomez is a grown woman, but on the cover of V, she looks like a 13-year-old Lolita-type with that hair clip and doe-eyed look," wrote another.
The harshest criticism may have come from a blogger at VH1 who compared the cover to images of Jodie Foster as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver and described Selena as a "baby hiding boobs."
It's important to reiterate that Selena is, in fact, a grown woman. She's dating Zedd these days, having finally shed herself of Justin Bieber, like a persistent stench that had been following her for years.
It seems she's decided to similarly distance herself from the Disney machine and she's chosen the Miley-esque method of artsy nudity.
That's her prerogative, of course, we just hope that in the future, someone in her camp will take her aside and remind her that if she wants to show the world she's all grown up, she should probably steer clear of uncomfortably child-like styling.
