A photo has been circulating on the Internet for several years, allegedly showing a huge difference in height between the French artist and the Slovak supermodel. We have verified the authenticity of this viral image.
In December 2024, the public “History | History” on VKontakte (338,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) commented on the photo as follows: “Slovakian model Adriana Sklenarikova-Karembø (her maiden name is Sklenarikova, but the model was married to football player Christian Karembø. Sometimes the authors of the posts mistakenly indicate her last name is Liepa. — Approx. ed.) and French actor Jamel Debbouze at the Cesar Award ceremony in 1999. Adriana’s height is 185 cm, and even higher with heels, while Jamel reaches 165 cm.”
Most often, this photo is published along with other photos depicting the couple at the same event. On VKontakte, such posts collect millions of views - for example, in public Lol Stuff (7.7 million), "Amazing stories" (5 million), "Interesting facts" (4.9 million), "Interesting things from the world"(3.1 million), prtn. (2.6 million) and "Black rhetoric"(1.5 million). Authors of some publications emphasizethat there are no edits in the viral photo, so it’s difficult believe, but this is “not photoshop at all.” Similar Russian-language posts can be found in “Odnoklassniki" The photo was also distributed outside the RuNet - for example, in 2022 the photo became popular on the website 9gag.
In March 1999 in Paris took place 24th Cesar Film Awards. Then among the celebrities who announced the laureates was indeed the duo of Karambeu and Debbouza. This couple looked very unusual - the height of the supermodel, according to various sources data, ranges from 180 to 185 cm, while the French actor is about 20 cm below (and this does not take into account the girl’s heels and voluminous hairstyle). The artist himself comically noticed this difference during the performance - for example, Debbuz asked his colleague to turn around so that her breasts were opposite his face.
And although the model was noticeably taller than the actor, the difference was still not as great as in the viral photo. Moreover, in the image being circulated, Debbouze's head appears unnaturally small. On the website of the Getty Images photo agency you can find several pictures from a slightly different angle, taken during the 24th Cesar ceremony. There's an actor on them Seems significantly higherthan in the image that went viral on social networks.
In fact, the image being analyzed, contrary to the claims of many bloggers, was still edited. The author of the modified version is a user of the DeviantArt website under the nickname lowerrider. Judging by his page, the essence of his work is to change photographs so that the women depicted in them look much taller than men (much less often - vice versa) or other women. Sometimes lowerrider brought up such photo shenanigans to the point of absurdity - for example, created multiple difference in height.
"Verified" discovered full version of the image from lowerrider and a link to its original publication. However, it will no longer be possible to watch it - at the time of writing this analysis, the author’s page on DeviantArt was deactivated (as reported, after several violations of platform policy), and no archived copies were preserved. However, on March 30, 2025, another user again published post from lowerrider with the caption: "Tall model Adriana Carambeu towers over diminutive actor Jamel Debbouze at the (French?) Oscars in 1999." She saw him staring at her “private parts.” It's probably disgusting, but if he barely reaches there, then she can probably forgive him...” In the lower left corner of the photoshopped version there was a lowerrider watermark, which other authors either trimmed, or sloppy covered up.
Using a reverse search on the altered image, “Verified” found the original, unedited version photos.
When overlaying the two images, you can see that lowerrider made other changes, including to the appearance of Karambeu.
This is not the only case where Internet users mistook lowerrider's work for genuine photographs. For example, after the Russian premieres of the film “Tenet” at the beginning of September 2020, a selection of photographs with actress Elizabeth Debicki began to circulate on the RuNet. Some of them were edited to make the girl look even taller than in life. Such posts can be found, for example, on VKontakte in the public pages “Cinema Mania ► New releases from the world of cinema"(860,000 views), "Cinema Empire" (twice: 484,000 And 476,000), "Hell's Kitchen: Non-Spoiler"(40,000) and MovieBlog (40,000). In almost all of the modified versions given in these publications, the lowerrider watermark was cut off.
In April 2022, the public “Film lovers - the best films"(more than 437,000 views, post deleted) published a joint photo of actors Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz with the caption that together they look very funny (apparently, due to the difference in their heights). It was actually a photo 2010, who subsequently edited lowerrider, changing the height of the actress.
In November 2022 public Netflix (257,000 views) shared two photos of actor Tom Holland with his colleague and girlfriend Zendaya. “This is what it means to approach relationships with humor,” the post said. In one of the photos, Zendaya gestured that Holland was much shorter than her. This really is true was in May 2017 at the MTV Movie Awards. In the original photographs, the difference in height was again not as significant as after manipulation with photo from lowerrider.
In December 2022, the public “Spent“(41,000 views) posted a photo of actor Adam Devine with basketball player Candace Parker and wrote: “Any man would feel awkward with such women.” In June 2018, the artist and the athlete together performed at the NBA Awards. This time the lowerrider watermark remained untouched in the post.
Thus, despite statements in some posts that the viral photo of Jamel Debbouze and Adriana Karambeu was not edited, the image was still processed. Although the actor and model do have a large difference in height, it was digitally increased significantly by the author under the nickname lowerrider.
Cover photo: lowerrider
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