Dwayne Johnson (The Rock)
Musée Grévin says it is an “improvement” on the wax figure of the “Fast and Furious” star after it sparked much ridicule on social media
Guard staff
Tue 24 Oct 2023 01:00 BST
A wax museum in Paris that was criticized for “whitewashing” a statue of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson says it will redesign the wax museum.
The Musée Grévin, modeled after London’s Madame Tussauds, unveiled the wax figure of the professional wrestler-turned-actor last week, but it quickly sparked much ridicule on social media and from the Fast and Furious star himself.
“They whitewashed The Rock,” wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter, while another compared the character to Mr. Clean. The Instagram account “Shade Room” called the character “melanin deficiency.”
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Born in California, Johnson is the son of a Samoan mother and a black Canadian father.
On Sunday evening, he joined the mass demonstration and posted a video on his Instagram page of comedian James Andre Jefferson Jr. saying that he felt “lowkey insulted” by the statue.
“It looks like he works at H&R Block or something… Is this how you all felt when you lost The Little Mermaid? I understand,” said the comedian. “It looks like The Rock has never seen the sun in his life…It looks like The Rock is part of the royal family.”
Along with the video, Johnson wrote: “For the record, I will be asking my team to reach out to our friends at the Grévin Museum in Paris, France so we can work on ‘updating’ my wax figure here with some important details and improvements ‘ – starting with my skin color.
“And next time I’m in Paris I’ll stop by and have a drink.”
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On Monday afternoon, the Musée Grévin, which houses 250 statues of famous people, said on Instagram that its artists were “working on improving” the wax figure. “Your feedback is always valuable to us,” they wrote.
At the unveiling of Johnson’s statue last week, the Musée Grévin’s wrote on its website that its creation “posed many challenges” to sculptor Stéphane Barret, who had to rely solely on photos and videos.
“Teams went into gyms hoping to find a man who matched The Rock’s extraordinary measurements. The star’s Samoan tattoos required ten days of painstaking work and much research by the painters,” the museum wrote, adding that the statue’s eyes were redone three times “to avoid too dark a tint from making the star’s face too harsh makes and extinguishes its warm aspect.” “.
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