Paris waxwork museum accused of 'whitewashing' The Rock

A wax museum in Paris has said its team are working to improve a statue of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, after the star said its skin colour needs an “update”.

The Musée Grévin unveiled the likeness last week, but received a barrage of online criticism for supposedly ‘whitewashing’ the wrestler turned actor.

One user on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: “I’m hoping it’s just the harsh lighting, but if not, how do you whitewash The Rock that badly?”

Johnson, who was born to a Black Canadian father and Samoan mother, reposted a video mocking the statue on Instagram.

In the caption, he said: “For the record, I’m going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grévin 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.”

The Grévin agreed with The Rock’s comments, and said its team had remedied the waxwork’s skin tone “during the night”.

“We have remedied the skin tone,” a spokesman for the museum told the PA news agency.

On the museum’s website, it explained there had been “many challenges” associated with this particular statue.

Sculptor Stéphane Barret had to rely on photos and videos of Johnson to create the work, rather than an in-person session, it said.

The team searched gyms to try and find someone with The Rock’s exact measurements, and said his Samoan tattoos had taken 10 days of painstaking work.

“The eyes of Dwayne Johnson’s waxwork had to be redone 3 times to avoid too dark a tint making the star’s face too hard and erasing its warm aspect,” the museum added.

The Grévin, which models itself off of London’s Madame Tussauds, hosts over 250 celebrity lookalikes made of wax.

The waxwork of ‘The Rock’ stands alongside other famous faces, including film stars Penelope Cruz and Leonardo DiCaprio at the museum.

Johnson said: “Next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself.”