French museum corrects skin tone of Dwayne Johnson's wax statue after backlash

A French museum in Paris has taken quick action to modify a wax figure of the renowned actor and WWE wrestler Dwayne Johnson, popularly known as 'The Rock,' following a barrage of criticism. The life-sized waxwork was unveiled by the Grevin Museum in Paris just this month which was met with heavy social media outcry.

Even Dwayne Johnson himself expressed his dissatisfaction on Instagram and shared a video in which comedian James Andre Jefferson Jr humorously criticised the wax statue’s portrayal. Jefferson commented that the museum had managed to transform 'The Rock' into a mere “pebble,” further asserting that the wax figure depicted the wrestler-turned-actor as if he had never experienced a single day of sunlight in his life. 

Sharing this, Dwayne wrote, "For the record, I'm going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grevin Museum, in Paris so we can work at "updating" my wax figure here with some important details and improvements - starting with my skin colour."

Within 24 hours, his figure was updated by artists who gave it a slightly darker skin tone with meticulous strokes of oil painting. Johnson's suburban dad-esque outfit, however, has remained. "We found his reaction rather friendly when addressing the fact that his figure was indeed whiter than it should have been," said Veronique Berecz, the museum’s head of public relations.

Berecz has been at the iconic museum for over four decades and worked closely with the likes of Michael Jackson, Nicolas Cage and Donald Sutherland on their respective wax figures, notes 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 said.

"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 asked about her thoughts on accusations of the museum "whitewashing" Johnson’s figure, she said it didn't cross anyone's mind. "This has nothing to do with it - we just made an honest mistake based on the photos we looked at," she said.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson landed in the limelight as a professional wrestler and transitioned into a Hollywood actor, mainly in action and comedy films such as Fast And The Furious, Moana and Jumanji.