Dwayne Johnson’s Frustration Over New Wax Statue Is Now Updated
The Grevin Museum in Paris, France has found itself at rock bottom after releasing their new wax figure of Dwayne Johnson.
According to CBS News, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is not satisfied with his new wax figure at the museum. The actor mentioned that he’s asked his team to reach out and change one major part of the figure: his skin tone.
Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Johnson agreed with some fans about the wax figure resembling Mr.Clean or Vin Diesel.
The Moana actor responded to the criticism on October 22 by reposting a video of comedian James Andre Jefferson Jr. on Instagram.
“You know Black a– Samoan The Rock? That’s how Paris thinks he looks,” Jefferson Jr., states in the video. “They turned The Rock into a pebble!… It looks like The Rock has never seen the sun a day in his life… You make the rock look like he David Beckham. It looks like The Rock is going to be a part of the royal family. Did y’all even Google him?”
“I knew my boy @jamesjeffersonj had this Rock wax statue in his roasting crosshairs,” the former WWE star captioned the post.
“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.
“And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself,” he added.
In a video posted on Instagram Wednesday, the museum’s managing director, Yves Delhommeau, mentioned that after seeing the figure under display lights, “we got a big surprise.”
“His skin tone seemed too pale,” Delhommeau stated. “And we suddenly realized we might have got it wrong.”
On the Grevin Museum’s website, they shared that Sculptor Stephane Barret had to “rely on photos and videos to create a statue as close to reality as possible, without the presence of the international star.”
“The teams went to gyms in the hope of finding a man who matched The Rock’s extraordinary measurements. The star’s Samoan tattoos took the painters 10 days of painstaking work and a lot of research.
“The eyes of Dwayne Johnson’s waxwork had to be redone 3 times to avoid too dark a tint making the star’s face too hard and erasing its warm aspect.”
After all the backlash, within a day, artists updated his depiction by adding meticulous oil painting strokes to give him a slightly darker complexion. Nevertheless, Johnson’s suburban dad-like attire has stayed the same.
“We found his reaction rather friendly when addressing the fact that his figure was indeed whiter than it should have been,” shared the museum’s head of PR, Veronique Berecz, who has been at the iconic museum for over 40 years.
“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,” she stated. “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.”
