Madame Tussauds Adjusts Styling and Lighting of Beyoncé Wax Figure Amid Backlash

No one at the museum could comment on Beyoncé's dissapperance.

We all know what Beyoncé looks like, right? Some of us could recognize the 22-time Grammy award winning pop singer faster than we could one of our family members. Even non-fans have seen her on TV and online enough to have a good idea of what her face looks like. However, the artists tasked with creating a wax figure of Beyoncé for the Midtown Manhattan location of Madame Tussauds do not fall into either of those categories. Perhaps they have all been living under a waxy rock for their entire lives, or they’re blind, because whatever they created looks nothing like Queen Bey.

This week, a photo of the statue recently made the rounds on social media and was shamelessly ridiculed. Just today, the statue had mysteriously disappeared from the wax museum, only to resurface in the museum with updated lighting. 

Beyonce's wax figure at @MadameTussauds looks like Kate Gosselin from 'Kate Plus 8' wearing a purple ensemble. Um, can we get a re-do? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/GmW7ysBWsE

According to a report from the New York Times, when the wax figure disappeared, no one at the museum could explain why the Beyoncé imposter statue was missing. A staff member only said that it was “off the floor until further notice.” A Madame Tussauds representative did not comment or answer questions about the whereabouts of it. But a few hours later, it reappeared, and the museum told the New York Daily News that they had "adjusted the styling and lighting of her figure."

Theory: Beyoncé wax figure makers have never seen Beyoncé pic.twitter.com/bZ2PWCUzUs

The suspicious disappearance of the figure and the museum's subsequent silence might be explained by understanding why this specific wax figure raised such concern. The backlash rested on more than its bizarre appearance: the wax figurine appeared too light skinned, and fans worried that this permanent depiction of one of the biggest pop stars on the planet would not be properly represented.

In an earlier statement to Complex, the Madame Tussauds New York team addressed this issue and attempted to find an alternate reason for Beyoncé’s suspiciously light skin. “Our talented team of sculptors take every effort to ensure we accurately color match all of our wax figures to the celebrity being depicted,” a representative said in an email. “Lighting within the attraction combined with flash photography may distort and misrepresent the color of our wax figures, which is something our sculptors are unable to account for at the production stage.”

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