Wax Statue Allegedly Of Beyoncé Yanked From Madame Tussaud's After Whitewashing Accusations

Faster than you can say “I thought that was Rita Ora,” a wax statue supposedly depicting Beyoncé but looking suspiciously lighter than the real thing was removed Thursday from Madame Tussaud’s midtown Manhattan location in New York, the New York Times reported Friday morning.

The faux Beyoncé caused a stir on social media this week after a photo of it went viral. The issue: The statue looked more like “Becky with the good hair” than it did the Lemonade singer.

The wax figure drew comparisons to Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Julia Stiles. Basically, none of whom could have possibly written “I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.”

For their part, Madame Tussaud’s defended their less than flawless interpretation of Beyoncé by saying that lighting and flash photography could have made the figure appear lighter than she really was.

The museum wrote in a statement to The New York Times:

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.

Twitter users offered an alternate explanation:

Madam Tussaud’s says the statue will be “off the floor until further notice.”