Kristen Stewart said criticism of her March 2024 Rolling Stone cover reflected a double standard about female and queer sexuality during her March 11, 2024 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Colbert displayed the cover after saying CBS had asked him not to show it, and Stewart answered with an explanation that ended in a profane retort.
What happened on The Late Show
Stewart appeared on the March 11, 2024 episode while promoting Love Lies Bleeding. Colbert brought up the backlash to her Rolling Stone cover and showed the image on air. According to Colbert’s account, “We were asked by CBS not to show it.” The official episode listing confirms the cover discussion and Stewart’s appearance; it does not independently verify that a CBS request was made.
The cover, from the magazine’s March 2024 issue, shows Stewart wearing a leather vest and jockstrap, with her hand inside the jockstrap. The image was deliberately provocative, but it was not presented as an explicit nude photograph.
Stewart’s explanation for the reaction
Colbert suggested that the response might come from the way the image “violates public expectations of female sexuality.” Stewart answered: “Female sexuality isn’t supposed to actually want anything but to be had.”
She characterized the cover’s “overt acknowledgment of a female sexuality that has its own volition” as something that could annoy people who are sexist and homophobic. That was Stewart’s interpretation of the backlash, not a measured finding about every person who objected to the image.
She continued: “That feels like it might be protruding in a way that might be annoying. But f–k you.” The broadcast bleeped the final profanity, while contemporaneous coverage reported the wording.
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What the Rolling Stone cover was intended to do
Stewart had already described the concept in the magazine’s cover profile, published February 14, 2024. She said, “Now, I want to do the gayest fucking thing you’ve ever seen in your life.” The profile described the planned image as “hyper-sexualized, left of andro, and flipping the gender script.”
That framing places the photograph within Stewart’s stated queer aesthetic: it was meant to reverse familiar assumptions about who is allowed to display desire and whose desire is treated as passive or available for others. The cover was also tied to the promotion of Love Lies Bleeding, a film centered on an intense relationship between women.
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| Date | Event | What is established |
|---|---|---|
| February 14, 2024 | Rolling Stone cover profile published | Stewart explained her intention to create a queer, hyper-sexualized image that flipped the gender script. |
| March 2024 | Cover issue released | The image appeared on the March 2024 edition of Rolling Stone in connection with Love Lies Bleeding. |
| March 11, 2024 | Stewart appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | Colbert displayed the cover and asked about the backlash; Stewart gave her sexism-and-homophobia explanation. |
| March 13, 2024 | Contemporaneous coverage published | TheWrap reported Colbert’s account that CBS had asked the program not to show the cover. |
What can—and cannot—be concluded about the backlash
- Stewart clearly viewed the criticism through the lens of gendered and homophobic expectations about sexuality.
- The cover was intentionally designed to challenge those expectations, according to Stewart’s own explanation.
- No reliable figure establishing how many people objected, or measuring a broader audience reaction, is supplied by the official episode listing, Rolling Stone profile or TheWrap report.
- Colbert’s statement about a CBS restriction should be attributed to his on-air account rather than treated as independently documented network policy.
Why the exchange drew attention
The interview turned a magazine-cover controversy into a short argument about agency. Colbert framed the image as a challenge to public expectations, while Stewart argued that the discomfort came from seeing female sexuality represented as active and self-directed. Her response connected the specific cover to a wider criticism of how women’s and queer people’s desire is displayed, judged and controlled.
The exchange also made the cover’s purpose unusually explicit. Rather than distancing herself from the photograph, Stewart defended its deliberate exaggeration and its attempt to move “left of andro,” making the backlash part of the conversation the image was designed to provoke.
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