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English footballer and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane was all smiles on Monday (Nov 18) as he unveiled a statue of himself at the Peter May Sports Centre in London. Stored for the past five years, the statue was previously mocked for its lack of resemblance to Kane – with fans calling it ‘hideous’, ‘so bad’ and the ‘stuff of nightmares’.
Despite the negative comments, Kane appears to have taken a liking to the statue and is appreciative of the gesture – taking to Instagram to show it off, along with a mural that highlights his footballing journey.
“This is pretty cool. So hopefully, this will inspire [the children training at the Peter May Sports Centre] to one day be playing for England as well,” said Kane in his video.
Kane’s statue joins a long line of much-derided sculptures modelled after celebrities over the years. Here are some of them.
In 2017, Portuguese sculptor Emanuel Santos was commissioned to create a bronze bust of CR7 as part of the Madeira Airport’s renaming to Madeira International Airport Cristiano Ronaldo. A swift backlash from fans and media outlets ensued upon the bust’s unveiling – with it being likened to “something out of a horror film”.
Santos defended his work and claimed that Ronaldo himself was happy with the bust.
In 2018, Santos’ bust was replaced with a new one, created by a Spanish sculptor, which bore a closer resemblance to Ronaldo.
Even basketballers aren’t spared from the curse of questionable statues. In October this year, American professional basketball team Miami Heat unveiled a statue of its former player Dwyane Wade.
The statue is said to have captured the end of a game against the Chicago Bulls in March 2009. However, the statue’s face has received a lot of criticism for its lack of resemblance to Wade – with many saying that it looked more like actor Laurence Fishburne instead.
Wade has since defended the sculpture, saying: “If I wanted it to look like me, I’d just stand outside the arena and y’all can take photos…It don’t need to look like me. It’s the artistic version of a moment that happened that we’re trying to cement.”
The Rock smelled what France’s Grevin Museum was cooking and he had thoughts. In 2023, the museum unveiled a wax figure of Johnson which appeared to look more like his Fast And Furious co-star Vin Diesel – with the figure having very light skin, as opposed to Johnson’s tanned skin.
Johnson later took to Instagram to announce that his team would be reaching out to Grevin Museum to update his wax figure “with some important details and improvements – starting with [his] skin colour”.
In 2019, fans of Ariana Grande did not hold back against Madame Tussauds in London after it unveiled a wax figure of the Positions singer that looked nothing like her. One fan wrote: “I got a fright when [the picture] was uploaded.”
Even Grande did not seem to be impressed by the figure, writing “I just wanna talk” in the comments section of a post by a fan account about the wax statue.
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