A Texas museum had to take down its wax figure of former president Donald Trump after visitors repeatedly punched it in the face.
Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks in San Antonio has pulled their wax figure in Trump’s likeness and placed it in storage after it was damaged from multiple attacks, PEOPLE reports. The wax figure has been transferred to an undisclosed location where it will undergo repairs.
“When it’s a highly political figure, attacks can be a problem,” said the museum’s regional manager Clay Stewart. The exhibits are “interactive,” and are in constant need of repair due to everyday wear and tear. “We’ve always had trouble with the presidential section because no matter what president it was — [George W.] Bush, Obama or Trump — they’ve all had people beat them,” said Stewart. “The ears were torn off Obama six times. And then Bush’s nose was punched in. People are just aggressive about their political party.”
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In a statement, Suzanne Smagala-Potts, spokesperson for the museum’s parent company, Ripley Entertainment, said the museum “has a long history of creating wax figures of the US President to display at our Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditoriums. Our wax figures will need repairing from time to time, ranging from Hollywood celebrities to political figures.”
“Ripley’s only showcases the highest quality of exhibits and wax figures,” her statement continued. “When a wax figure has been damaged, we will remove the figure from public display and send it to our talented team of artists for repair.”
Smagala-Potts noted that Ripley’s wax museums allow visitors to “pose and take selfies,” with the wax figures. “A lot of times, a figures will need repair and it’s not even intentional — people just want to touch the face of Miley Cyrus or Lady Gaga or put their arm around it, and maybe they knock it down by accident,” she continued.
The Trump sculpture will eventually be repaired and may be returned to the museum — unless another display is planned at the gallery, such as the Joe Biden figure which is currently being modeled, according to the report. Just days before the Nov. 3 presidential election, the Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds Wax museum put a wax figure of Trump in a dumpster, theGRIO reported.
The wax figure was surrounded by garbage bags and signs that read “Dump Trump,” “Fake news,” “I love Berlin,” and “You are fired!” A “Make America Great Again” red hat is visible on top of the bags of garbage.
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According to Reuters, Orkide Yalcindag, the museum’s marketing manager, said the decision to discard the wax statue is a symbol of what’s to come.
“Today’s activity is rather a symbolic character ahead of the elections in the United States,” she said. “We here at Madame Tussauds Berlin removed Donald Trump’s waxwork as a preparatory measure.”
Trump left office in January with his approval rating in the low-40s yet 54 percent of GOP voters said they would support him if he ran in 2024.
*theGRIO’s Ashley Terrell contributed to this report
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