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After receiving backlash for the skin tone of the Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson wax statue, the Paris-based Grevin Museum has made the necessary changes to the artwork.
Earlier this week, The Rock took to Instagram to share a video highlighting how weirdly light-skinned the statue was. The statue was so light-skinned, in fact, that the half-Black and half-Samoan Johnson looked like a white dude.
“For the record, I’m going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grevin Museum, in Paris France so we can work at ‘updating’ my wax figure here with some important details and improvements- starting with my skin color,” The Rock wrote on Instagram.
Immediately following the negative attention, the Grein Museum made the necessary changes to the statue’s skin color to more accurately represent The Rock.
Veronique Berecz, the head of PR for the Grevin Museum, told Variety that the ordeal was an “honest mistake” stemming from their use of photos to make the sculpture and how “skin tones can differ depending on the lighting.”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet Dwayne Johnson so we used several photos — but as it turns out, pictures can be very tricky because the nuances of skin tones can differ depending on the lighting on photos,” Berecz said.
“Every time, the sculptor has to determine the exact face and body shapes, the volumes and it’s always a very complicated challenge if we haven’t met the person.”
Oddly enough, I just walked passed The Rock wax statue that stands outside of the Madame Tussauds location in New York City the other day.
In typical Rock fashion, though, the wrestling and Hollywood superstar handled the situation with class, as he promised to stop by the museum the next time he’s in town.
“And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself,” his Instagram caption concluded.
The Rock will next be seen starring alongside Chris Evans and JK Simmons in the Prime Video holiday film Red One, which will likely be released sometime this holiday season (while no official release date has been announced, production wrapped back in February).