Dwayne Johnson is looking so much better.
The Musée Grévin in France unveiled its redo of The Rock’s wax figure statue after the actor’s fans — and Johnson himself — criticized the oddly smooth, fair-skinned original.
The new version has darker skin and the 51-year-old Johnson’s face isn’t quite as Botoxed.
The museum’s PR head Veronique Berecz told Variety: “We found his reaction rather friendly when addressing the fact that his figure was indeed whiter than it should have been. 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.” The idea of whitewashing, she says, had “nothing do with it. We just made an honest mistake based on the photos we looked at. After we saw all these reactions on different blogs and social networks, we changed it immediately.”
Johnson is still dressed like a golfer, however.
An employee at Musée Grévin adjusting the skin tone on the wax figure of Dwayne Johnson.
STEFANO RELLANDINI/AFP via Getty Images
The original statue was compared to Mr. Clean and mocked online. “You know black-ass Samoan The Rock?” said comedian James Andre Jefferson’s. “That’s how Paris thinks he looks. They turned The Rock into a pebble … It looks like The Rock ain’t never seen the sun a day in his life. It looks like The Rock is part of the royal family.”
As Berecz indicated, Johnson himself seemed to take it all in stride, posting on Instagram: “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.”
Johnson’s next film is Prime Video’s action film Red One, where he stars with Chris Evans. He’s described the Christmas film as a mix between A Miracle on 34th Street and Hobbs & Shaw.
