Kerry Washington’s role as Olivia Pope on the ABC hit Scandal is seriously causing her star to rise and she is finally getting the major media attention she deserves. Ms. Washington landed her first cover of a major fashion magazine when she snagged the cover story for the June 2013 issue of Elle Magazine.

Doesn’t Ms. Washington look so purrrtty?

Dodai Stewart, of Jezebel, was wondering, only a few months ago, when would Ms. Washington finally get a cover:

Washington has been on the covers of Essence, Ebony and Women’s Health, which is great. But these are not the mainstream glossies that really confirm a celebrity has arrived. Washington was on a version of Elle’s Women in Hollywood issue, but as with Octavia Spencer, Washington’s cover was not on newsstands. Sarah Jessica Parker was awarded that honor.

With this cover, Ms. Washington is finally playing with the big boys (and girls), but did she squander a bit of her hard-earned new celebrity star power and cache with her role in Peeples, a Tyler Perry-produced flick which just flopped its opening weekend?
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Jamila Akil is a Senior Editor at Beyond Black and White. Follow her on Twitter @jamilaakil