Beyonce’s Whitewashed, Nearly Unrecognizable Wax Figure Has Been Removed After A Backlash

Well, that didn’t take very long. The Beyonce wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s NY has been removed after fan backlash earlier this week.

Fans criticized the statue for being too light-skinned — almost white-looking, in fact — and for not really resembling the star singer in the face. The statue drew comparisons to Lindsay Lohan, Taylor Swift, and Julia Stiles — none of whom even remotely resembles the singer, who recently gave birth to twins Rumi and Sir Carter (Rumi goes first, because apparently, she is older). This isn’t the first time the artist’s fans have accused media of lightening her skin, prompting jokes that some people may not realize that Beyonce is Black — see above.

As of Thursday, the statue had been taken off the floor, and according to The New York Times, “A staff member at the building did not offer a reason for the wax figure’s absence, saying only that the statue was ‘off the floor until further notice.’ A museum representative declined to answer questions about why the figure was no longer displayed.”

While this is pure speculation, it seems pretty likely that the museum’s management heard about the backlash on social media, and despite a valid argument that “Lighting within the attraction combined with flash photography may distort and misrepresent the color of our wax figures,” once the almighty internet gets ahold of an idea, it’s pretty hard to argue without taking some sort of action. The statue will likely be back — after all, Beyonce is one the biggest stars on the planet — and hopefully, that pesky lighting in the attraction will have been accounted for before too many photos make their way to Twitter. The jokes will live forever, though.

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