That’s So Raven was a hit when it ran on Disney Channel between 2003 and 2007, but it sounds like the show wasn’t as fun behind the scenes. A new book about the network, Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire, reportedly laid out some serious problems with That’s So Raven’s editing process. Specifically, multiple sources claimed that Raven-Symoné’s body was altered in post-production to look thinner.
According to the book, the editing team used CGI techniques to make Raven look slimmer, after network execs expressed concerns about Raven’s weight. “Disney Channel was going crazy about it,” Dava Savel, a co-producer and writer on the show, told author Ashley Spencer. “And they handled it in really bad ways. But it was never to her face.”
In one episode, titled “That’s So Not Raven,” the show follows Raven as she models her designs for a magazine, only to realize later that the publication altered her photo to make her skinnier. The episode ends with Raven learning a valuable lesson about body positivity. But apparently, the Disney execs weren’t paying attention to that message.
Per E!, the book claimed that “multiple people involved in the episode” have said that a network executive instructed editors to alter Raven’s body in the final cut — despite the episode’s subject matter.
“It was shameful,” Michael Feldman, a producer on the show, said in the book. “I don’t know how they could look at themselves and do that. The very thing that she wanted to do a story about was literally done to her. It’s still a shocking thing to me that they were that tone-deaf.”
Adam Bonnett, the former head of Disney Channel original programming, also weighed in. He told Spencer that kind of post-production editing was “not something [he] would have asked for,” but said he remembered it being used in other episodes of the show.
“There was some stuff done to make Raven[‘s attire] look more flattering in certain scenes,” Bonnett said in the book, per E!
