Hollywood has gotten a striking, life-size reminder of the entertainment industry's drug problem. Street artist Plastic Jesus placed a life-size Oscar statue doing lines of cocaine on Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue Thursday—right outside where the streets will be closed for the Academy Awards. Last year the artist pulled a similar stunt with a statue injecting heroin.
The street artist said he lost his cousin and cousin's wife to heroin overdoses last year in an interview with NY Daily News. "When you live in Hollywood and work in the industry, you realize how endemic drug use really is—affecting everyone from aspiring actors and actresses to sound and lighting guys to agents and managers," Plastic Jesus said. "But it’s only when you have a high profile death like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Whitney Houston that it hits the news."
The Academy attempted to remove last year's statue, but it won't have to worry about it this year. Plastic Jesus has already removed the statue after a passerby began to call the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. It will reportedly find a new home in front the Urban Outfitters on Melrose Avenue.
[via Mashable]
