At first the actress admirably defended the photos: "I like my curves," she told OK! magazine earlier this week. "My boyfriend loves them. So whatever works!"
"Every woman has cellulite," the actress said. "I've never claimed to have a perfect body."
Barton said she eats well, exercises and is comfortable with her body.
"If I'm in shape and I'm fulfilling my role as an actress, then that's all that matters to me. There's been a lot of nasty gossip written about me. If I was to cry over every single thing, I'd be the most depressed person ever."
She also said she thinks the paparazzi sometimes intentionally take unflattering photos.
"[The paparazzi] know they are worth more money," Barton said. "I've never claimed to have a perfect body, but it is what it is. I have a woman's body. I have hips and boobs so it goes straight there, which I don't mind because it gives me curves."
However, now the actress is claiming the photos were retouched.
"Those photos are doctored," Lisa Perkins, Barton's rep, told the New York Daily News. "I'm not saying she's perfect, nobody is. But they've given a 22-year-old woman the legs and bottom of an 80-year-old.
"Look at the shots that were taken shortly before on a beach in L.A. Did she develop all that cellulite in a couple of weeks? There's a lot you can do with Photoshopping."
Perkins told the New York Daily News that "parasite" photographer Jamie Fawcett tried to make Barton look bad because the actress was topless in the photos.
Fawcett denied the validity of the claim: "I wouldn't seek to publicly embarrass her with nudity or health issues or body image issues," he said. "It is a shame that publications tend to highlight an issue that is not fair to a young girl... However, sometimes these are the things that sell pictures."
The photographer sold the photographs to Britain's Daily Mail for an undisclosed sum of money.
