The “queen of rock-and-roll,” Tina Turner, was no stranger to statues and accolades: In her celebrated musical career, she won eight Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But on Saturday, the artist, who died in 2023, earned a statue of a different kind: a 10-foot bronze statue of herself, erected in her hometown of Brownsville, Tennessee.
Turner is the latest celebrity to have their likeness captured in bronze, clay, wood and more for posterity. Many of these statues have been built in the person’s hometown, or in a symbolic location for their career, such as a sports stadium, to celebrate their life and achievements. But these efforts have often been met with mixed reactions, and some statues have been criticized for bearing little resemblance to their subject.
In Brownsville, the statue’s unveiling as part of the annual Tina Turner Heritage Days was met with cheers and laughs, according to a video posted by the Brownsville Haywood County Chamber of Commerce. People came from as far as Georgia to see it, according to the Associated Press, and a writer for Black Wall Street Times described it as a “monumental tribute.”
But the feedback wasn’t all positive: A writer from the Root said they were “creeped out” by the statue’s smile. Critics quickly zeroed in on sculptor Fred Ajanogha’s representation of Turner’s trademark mane. “Never have I ever seen Tina Turner with that hair … doesn’t look like Tina,” wrote one Facebook user. “Let’s just say they did my lady wrong. I guess Tina would say What’s Love got to do with it,” another wrote, in a reference to one of Turner’s famous songs.
Depicting a famous figure in a way that pleases fans is always a challenge — just ask the artists behind the portraits of King Charles III, President Donald Trump and other presidents, or the sculptors behind sporting greats such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah.
Here’s are some of the other celebrity statues famous for being controversial — and what ended up happening to them.
In 2009, a 400-pound bronze sculpture of Lucille Ball was erected in her hometown of Celoron, New York. It was nicknamed the “Scary Lucy” statue for its take on the American actress, who starred in the TV show “I Love Lucy” and has been described as the greatest comic actress ever known to television. The uproar was such that a group of Ball’s fans eventually set up the Facebook group called “We Love Lucy! Get Rid of this Statue” to petition for the statue’s replacement.
In 2015, the sculptor, Dave Poulin, wrote in a letter to the Hollywood Reporter that he took “full responsibility for ‘Scary Lucy,’” and said it was “by far my most unsettling sculpture, not befitting of Lucy’s beauty or my ability as a sculptor.”
The statue was later replaced by a new statue of Ball by sculptor Carolyn Palmer, which seems to have placated Ball’s fans — in fact, the Facebook group has since been retitled, “We Love Lucy — and we got our new statue.” Still, the town decided to keep the other statue on display at the Lucille Ball Memorial Park as well.
A bronze bust of the Portuguese soccer icon, installed in 2017 at the airport of the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira, where Ronaldo was born, is among the most well-known failed celebrity sculptures worldwide. Its controversial unveiling prompted mockery worldwide and was the subject of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch with Kate McKinnon. Multiple social media accounts were also created to call for its removal.
In fact, when The Washington Post wrote about it, it called the statue “terrifying.”
Ronaldo himself was gracious about the bust. “Thank you for being here in my honor,” he said in a statement at the time. “Seeing my name being given to this airport is something very special, everyone knows that I am proud of my country and especially my home city.”
Emanuel Santos, the sculptor, also defended his work, telling the Bleacher Report: “People have to understand that art is a way to express oneself that contains emotions. It’s not a precise science. … If I had to do it again, I would make everything exactly the same.”
The bust was replaced in 2018, reportedly at the request of Ronaldo’s family, according to the Madeira Island News.
In 2019, a wooden statue of first lady Melania Trump dressed in blue appeared near her hometown of Sevnica in Slovenia, prompting unflattering comparisons to a “Smurfette.” No one seemed to know if it was a serious work of art or a prank: American artist Brad Downey commissioned Slovenian artist Ales “Maxi” Zupevc, who is also from Sevnica, to design and carve the statue. Downey, a Kentucky-born conceptual artist, is sometimes known for his public pranks, but told The Post at the time that this Trump statue was intended as a serious commentary on how two lives rooted in the same place can drastically diverge.
A year later, the statue was set on fire, prompting a police investigation. It was later removed from its position near Sevnica. Downey replaced it with a bronze statue of Melania Trump, which the Associated Press noted had “no obvious resemblance with the first lady” — but that statue went missing in 2025.
Meanwhile, a wooden statue of Donald Trump in a blue suit and a bright red tie, which appeared in the Slovenian village of Sela pri Kamniku in 2019, was also set on fire and destroyed in 2020.
A statue of soccer star Mohamed Salah was euphemistically described as “unusual” by the BBC when it was unveiled in 2018 at the Sharm el-Sheikh World Youth Forum in Salah’s home country of Egypt.
The statue depicts Salah celebrating with his arms open wide. However, Twitter users immediately compared the oddly proportioned statue to Margaret Thatcher, Marv from “Home Alone,” Art Garfunkel and Richard Simmons.
Sculptor Mai Abdallah said that the brass statue had come out looking differently from the original mold, and said he hoped that “people learn the art of criticism politely,” according to the BBC.
A commentator for The Post noted at the time: “This statue looks like a lot of people, but Mo Salah isn’t one of them.”