The statue was denounced on social media because it seemed to whitewash the pop star. On Thursday, it could not be found at the museum in Manhattan.
Beyoncé is taking a break from the public eye.
Not the real Beyoncé — though she, too, seems to be lying low since the birth of her twins, Sir Carter and Rumi, who, at a month old, appeared in a photo on her Instagram page last week.
This is about a Beyoncé made of wax that was, until recently, on display at the Midtown Manhattan location of Madame Tussauds, the wax statue museum known for its celebrity likenesses, with locations around the world.
As of Thursday afternoon, the statue was absent. But it still lives on social media, where a photograph of the figure attracted criticism from far and wide this week.
The problem? Not only did the figure not resemble the chart-topping pop star, critics said, but it also appeared to be too light-skinned. A chorus of comments on social media compared the statue with celebrities like Taylor Swift, Lindsay Lohan and Julia Stiles.
On Thursday afternoon, tourists wandered around the multistory Manhattan museum, snapping selfies and photographs with spitting images of celebrities including Frank Sinatra, Leslie Jones, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez and Harrison Ford.
But Beyoncé was nowhere to be found. A staff member at the building did not offer a reason for the wax figure’s absence, saying only that the statue was “off the floor until further notice.” A museum representative declined to answer questions about why the figure was no longer displayed.
A spokeswoman for Beyoncé could not immediately be reached for comment.
Statues sometimes go “on tour” to different locations, and at least one other Beyoncé figure has been created for Madame Tussauds.
Sculpting celebrity likenesses — and meeting the expectations of their fans — is tough work, especially in the age of social media.
A statue of Lucille Ball, for example, in her hometown, Celoron, N.Y., that was unveiled in 2009 was dubbed “Scary Lucy” after criticism of the work erupted on social media in 2015. A year after that, it was replaced with a more lifelike version.
Over the years, other wax debuts at Madame Tussauds have been subjected to the scorn of devotees, including likenesses of Justin Bieber, Ryan Gosling and Taylor Swift .
Madame Tussauds statues are typically created by a team of studio artists and usually take three or four months to finish.
“Our talented team of sculptors take every effort to ensure we accurately colour match all of our wax figures to the celebrity being depicted, ” Madame Tussauds New York said in an emailed statement regarding the Beyoncé figure.
“Lighting within the attraction combined with flash photography may distort and misrepresent the colour of our wax figures, which is something our sculptors are unable to account for at the production stage.”
The wax-statue kerfuffle is far from the first time that representations or images of Beyoncé have come under fire for apparent whitewashing.
Fans of the singer have called out organizations — including L’ Oreal, the French cosmetics company, and WikiHow, the how-to website — for using images in which Beyoncé appears light-skinned.
