Mega-flack 'Shocked' By 'W''s Art Issue Stunt

Remember when I told you that W magazine was running the risk of pissing off some very powerful Hollywood gatekeepers by appropriating stars' images, without permission, for the cover of its art issue?

Well, consider them pissed off. Or at least consider Jennifer Aniston's publicist, Stephen Huvane, pissed off, which is bad enough. He tells Us Weekly, "We were not happy about it.... We were shocked and disappointed that W ran that cover."

(What was I doing reading Us Weekly? Uh, mailroom mix-up. Someone must have accidentally switched it with Harper's.)

And Huvane is not a person whose favor any fashion magazine can afford to lose. In addition to Aniston, his client list includes Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kirsten Dunst, all three of whom have appeared on W's cover, the latter two in 2007.

It's a truly strange decision when you consider that for W, which averages about 50,000 copies per issue on the newsstand, a truly blockbuster cover means selling an extra 30,000 or so copies. When Vanity Fair pulled the same stunt with Brad Pitt, at least it could hope to move the needle by a couple hundred thousand units.