A rep for the Paris museum Musée Grévin addressed the recent controversy with one of their wax statues and have already updated the likeness of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
The wax statue has been making headlines for the last week after fans mocked how the figure had a much lighter complexion than the real Johnson. They also noted how his outfit didn’t look like something The Rock would normally wear.
When asked about accusations of “whitewashing” the celebrity, who is of Samoan descent, the museum’s head of PR Veronique Berecz denied any ill intent. “This has nothing do with it — we just made an honest mistake based on the photos we looked at,” she said, per Variety. “After we saw all these reactions on different blogs and social networks, we changed it immediately.”
The celebrity himself had previously re-shared a video from a comedian addressing the statue’s appearance.
“Knew my boy [James Andre Jefferson Jr.] had this Rock wax statue in his roasting crosshairs,” Johnson wrote in the video caption. “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.”
Berecz agreed with the “Black Adam” star’s assessment and said she felt his reaction was appropriate.
“We found his reaction rather friendly when addressing the fact that his figure was indeed whiter than it should have been,” she said.
The PR rep went on to discuss how much effort went into the statue’s creation.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
“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 added. “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.”
She continued, “We conducted a casting of models based on his body measurements, and that wasn’t a small undertaking because we had to find a man who had roughly the same body type as Dwayne Johnson — a height of 6’5″ with those huge muscles — and we found our model in a bodybuilding club!”