A museum that was accused of using a lighter skin tone to portray Dwayne Johnson in wax figure form has now spoken out amid the scandal.
The Grévin Museum in Paris denied white-washing accusations after the 51-year-old called them out on social media.
The figure, which was unveiled on October 16, showed the star with his signature pose. Its arms were folded as it stood firm and strong with a slight smile and glint in its eye. As for its outfit, it seemed to mimic a suburban dad ready to pick his kids up from private school and drop them off at their water polo session - that was the vibe.
Taking to Instagram earlier this week, Johnson reposted a video by @jamesjeffersonj which showed the piece of artwork being roasted for its light complexion especially considering the actor's naturally tan skin.
Have a look at the video below:"I knew my boy @jamesjeffersonj had this Rock wax statue in his roasting crosshairs," he wrote in the 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.
"And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself," he joked at the end.
In the video, the comedian urged whoever the artist was to stay away from "arts and crafts" so much so that he even stated that he didn't want this person to create virtual characters anymore, let alone real-life renditions.
"You know Black a** Samoan The Rock? That’s how Paris thinks he looks," Jefferson Jr. said in the clip. "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?", he added.
In response to the claims, Veronique Berecz, the museum’s head of PR who has been at the iconic museum for over four decades, spoke out about the alleged "white-washing" claims after artists updated the figure with a slightly darker skin tone.
"We found his reaction rather friendly when addressing the fact that his figure was indeed whiter than it should have been," Berecz told Variety.
"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 continued. "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."
The museum's head of PR then went on to state that Johnson's wax figure was a difficult one to get the proportions correct for.
"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!", Berecz said.
When questioned further about the white-washing accusations, she added that there was no malice behind it and that it was just an "honest mistake."
"This has nothing to do with it — we just made an honest mistake based on the photos we looked at," she said. "After we saw all these reactions on different blogs and social networks, we changed it immediately."
Now that The Rock's wax figure has seen a bit of sun, it's ready to be put back on display in the museum for fans to enjoy.
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