Matt Connarton Unleashed: Sinead O'Connor wax figure disaster

0:00 Speaker 1: Speaking of across the Pond, I just saw this story pop up about Shnead O'Connor and her wax figure. Apparently it's been pulled because it looks terrible to see this, to see this film. Yeah, this is from The Guardian. Shnead O'Connor waxwork pulled from Dublin Museum after backlash. The Irish singer's brother speaks of shock at hideous figure which looked nothing like her. And when I look at the image in the article again this is from the Guardian, it looks like reminds me of I forget the name of the character now from the first Star Trek movie, the woman with the shaved head.

0:41 Speaker 1: But yeah, it says Dublin's Wax Museum is withdrawing a figure of Shanead O'Connor. I mean criticism from her family and members of the public that it looked nothing like her. Man he reacted with shock when the waxwork figure was unveiled on Thursday. The museum's team met on Friday morning and decided to remove the wax work of the Irish singer, admitting that it can do better and pledging to create a more accurate representation her brother, John O'Connor, said he was shocked when he first saw it online and said it did not look like her at all.

1:14 Speaker 1: Uh. Speaking on r t A radio's Liveline program on Friday after it was announced the figure would be withdrawn, he said he had not been made aware that a waxwork of his sister was to be unveiled this week.

1:29 Speaker 2: Didn't even tell a family.

1:30 Speaker 1: Isn't that weird?

1:31 Speaker 2: It's very weird. I just sent you the picture, Miriam, so you could take a look at it too.

1:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. I agree. I agree.

1:37 Speaker 2: I don't think it looks like her. I think it's I think generic looking.

1:42 Speaker 3: It kind of looks like a Star Trek sorry, yeah.

1:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, the character from Star Trek.

1:49 Speaker 3: Oh, I can't remember that work.

1:55 Speaker 1: No, from the first Star Trek movie, the very the very first movie in seventy nine. You know, the one where they had the uniforms that looked like pajamas. There's a character with a honestly a female with a bald head. Yeah, I know.

2:11 Speaker 3: What you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, Like I can't think of her name.

2:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, The brother said quote. When I saw it online yesterday, I was shocked. I thought it looked something between a mannequin and something out of the Thunderbirds. I thought she made would have been very fond of looking well, and she certainly did. And if it was supposed to be a representation of her in her early twenties when she did nothing compares to you. It just looked nothing like her. I thought it was hideous. A friend of mine said to me last night that he'd be that he'd seen better in Shaw's department store in the window.

2:45 Speaker 1: There's also enough visual stuff out there in terms of videos and photos that show what she did look like. Unquote. O'Connor suggested that a better way to honor his sister would be to put a statue of her in Dublin. He said it was particularly upsetting to speak about the issue on Friday, the first anniversary of her death at the age of fifty six. Okay, so it was a year ago Thathed O'Connor passed away.

3:08 Speaker 2: Yes, natural causes, Yeah, Unfortunately, she was just found found down.

3:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, yeah, because in her home there was speculation at the time that she may have committed suicide.

3:18 Speaker 2: And it was not. It was a natural causes.

3:20 Speaker 1: Because her her son, I think just within he.

3:23 Speaker 2: Did commit to Yeah, yeah, within a I think it had been like about a year or so.

3:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

3:30 Speaker 2: He was very young too.

3:32 Speaker 1: Yeah.

3:33 Speaker 2: She had a lot of strife in her life, a lot of pain and suffering in her life that channeled into her music. That actually promoted her popularity because people could relate to her pain. Yeah, in ways that nobody else had brought it out. She was very unique, very unique in her style. I think she had four kids.

3:52 Speaker 1: I want to say, I don't know.

3:54 Speaker 2: She she had a few, yeah, but I'm not exactly positive on how many. But it's weird that they would put up something like this and unveil it but not have the like when you want the family present to unveil the statue, you would think.

4:09 Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean unless they were thinking, uh, oh, this doesn't look that great. Let's just not say anything and maybe they won't notice, you.

4:17 Speaker 2: Know, But really, did you see how many people started out for her funeral. No one's gonna notice. Give me a break.

4:23 Speaker 1: Well, you know, if you just you keep it on the d L you know, with the wax figure, just just let it get out there organically, you know, maybe you know, but that way, if the family doesn't know right away, you know, but it's been there for a while, it's harder.

4:37 Speaker 3: You know.

4:37 Speaker 1: Then it's like, say a year went by and the family had no idea, and then one day the brother notices if it's already been there for a year, it'd be kind of awkward for the brother to be like, hey, can you get rid of this? It's like a dude, it's already been there a year.

4:49 Speaker 2: The facial structure isn't even close. Wow, I'm looking at this man again and looking at the pictures of her and going, I can understand why her brother was upset.

4:56 Speaker 1: Uh huh, Well, maybe there's something about her. The specifica to recreate as a wax figure I think would come on.

5:05 Speaker 1: Maybe maybe there's something I mean, maybe there's something about Irish people. It's just hard to stop it. I can say that I'm Irish, so it's not it's not racist.

5:14 Speaker 2: Talking about his Irish Irish melon.

5:16 Speaker 1: Yes, I do, I have an enormous head because Irish people have large heads. For mother, and yeah, no kidding. Yeah, she was pretty torn up about it. But oh but I realized years ago what No, she was like, well, my son was a freakishly large head. That's uh, that's upsetting, but years ago, years and years ago. See, I never realized it for a lot of my life. And then one night I'm watching Conan O'Brien and he made a joke about his own very large head and said, Irish people have large heads. And I'd never thought about this is one hundred percent true.

5:45 Speaker 1: By the way, this isn't just to be funny. This is true. And I'd never thought about it before until he said that. I was like, wait, do I have a large head? And I went to look in the bathroom mirror and I was like, yeah, I do have a large head. And I'd never thought about it before, but I do. And then I realized that it is true. Like Chris Matthews. I used to watch a lot of hardball, Chris Matthews, he has a large head. He's got a big Irish, big Irish melon. And who else Tip O'Neil had a very large head.

6:10 Speaker 1: It's just something Irish people have, I mean. And then I thought, wow, I do I have a big Irish I look like a South Park character. I got this enormous head, but that's okay. I need a large head to hold my enormous brain. Oh my god. So that's why Irish people are saying.

6:24 Speaker 2: To shove him through the door, to fit him through. At the end of the day, that's.

6:28 Speaker 1: Why we're so smart. We have enormous heads to hold our enormous brains. See, it all makes sense. But I have to say, in this pigure, this picture of the wax figure, I can't see how large the head is in proportion with the rest of the body. So I don't know if they made her with a large head or she even had a large head. I never noticed if Sinad O'Connor had a large head, but well, she's Irish.

6:55 Speaker 2: Yes, she's Irish, so she must have had a large head.

6:58 Speaker 1: We all do.

7:00 Speaker 2: Actually, I thought she was kind of demure, smaller in size.

7:04 Speaker 1: Yeah maybe maybe.

7:06 Speaker 2: Not all Irish people have big heads.

7:08 Speaker 1: Like you men. Maybe the people when they made the wax figure they created her with a larger head than she actually had because they figured, well, she's Irish, obviously we need to put this symnormous head on top of the well.

7:18 Speaker 2: They did make it more rounded and less narrow than it truly is.

7:21 Speaker 1: So do you think so? Is that your assessment?

7:22 Speaker 2: That is my assessment.

7:23 Speaker 1: Yes, it's too it's too round.

7:25 Speaker 2: It's too round.

7:26 Speaker 1: Okay, I agree, yeah, but well my head is round and I'm irish.

7:33 Speaker 2: But hers has a narrowing chin. Mine not fully rounded.

7:37 Speaker 1: Actually mine's not fully rounded either, because I have a point.

7:40 Speaker 2: You do not have a point.

7:41 Speaker 1: I do have a point he head, it's not point. I am from France. I do have a conehead.

7:48 Speaker 2: This is what I've had to put up with all morning. Miriam.

7:54 Speaker 1: So the brother he told on this radio show. He said, quote, I lost my sister, and to me that's important. Since she's not here to defend herself or to speak for herself. I just took it upon myself to contact you about it. Unquote yeah, because sometimes like because it's not like they only do wax figures of dead people, right, Sometimes they do wax figures of people who are alive. Like somebody somewhere made a wax figure of the rock, and I remember the rock was like making fun of it, like, wow, that doesn't look like me.

8:23 Speaker 4: There's a whole museum in London, Madame Tussau's wax museum full of people who are still a lot. Did you go there when you were I did not that visit to London, but a previous visit to London.

8:35 Speaker 1: Oh okay, going there now, if you were to walk in there, like if you were to walk in there today and they had a wax figure of Shinead O'Connor and it looked like this, would you say something? Would you be like, hey, what do you people doing?

8:45 Speaker 3: I might mutter to myself. I don't think that looks like her?

8:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you would you, but you wouldn't say anything.

8:52 Speaker 4: You walk by probably and yeah, yeah, you know, just look at the next thing.

8:55 Speaker 1: See that's what they were counting on, people walk by, walking by.

8:58 Speaker 3: I'm not there, you know, if I'd have said anything.

9:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think the whole concept is kind of weird, to be honest with you, spooky if it's a dead person.

9:08 Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think I know spooky.

9:09 Speaker 4: I think the hard movies have been made about wax museums and this like a bencent price exactly.

9:14 Speaker 1: See, that's the thing that's what freaks me out.

9:16 Speaker 4: Right and so and I think that the whole premise of that movie is that they weren't wax figures, they were people covered in y right.

9:23 Speaker 2: See, that was very very creepy, that Doctor Who episode.

9:27 Speaker 4: Like that, Probably there are Doctor Who figures in the Madam Tusso's Wax Museum, which.

9:32 Speaker 3: Are very cool.

9:33 Speaker 2: Ooh, I want to have any fun.

9:36 Speaker 4: When I first saw that, it was like I had sort of recently become aware of Doctor Who. I started dating a guy in nineteen seventy nine that was a big Doctor Who fan. And I went to London in nineteen eighty two and I saw in all these wax figures of all the characters and things up to that point.

9:53 Speaker 2: They have a wax figure of a Darlk of a Donalek.

9:56 Speaker 3: Yes they do, they do.

9:57 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I said that kind of sarcastic, but I didn't expect. Oh, they must have a weeping angel.

10:05 Speaker 3: Then probably I haven't been there since.

10:08 Speaker 2: Now I'm on a Doctor Who Kick.

10:11 Speaker 1: Well, so there's a little bit more to this. Uh. Paddy Dunning the Wax Museum, that's a very patty. Pa d d Y, that's a very ash name. The wax Museum director, who said he was a longtime friend of Sinead O'Connor oh apologize to the family. He said that the wax Museum sculptor PJ. Harrodt Harridy delivered the figure the night before it was unveiled. He said the artists had done fantastic work in previous years, but has not been been feeling well and had retired. I get it. So the artist wasn't feeling well.

10:53 Speaker 2: And they pulled him out of retirement apparently to this. Yes, so there might have been a little spite involved there.

11:00 Speaker 1: Right, he was probably like I was retired. I was enjoying my retirement. But now I'm resentful, so I'm going to sabotage the oor wax figure. Yes, yeah, Patty, that is Patty angry. If I were if I were a resentful wax figure sculptor, I would not you know, I just I would still try to do a good job, you know. I mean, I might be mad about it.

11:25 Speaker 2: But they are kind of creepy wax figures. Yeah, well yeah, yeah, they look like dead people standing.

11:32 Speaker 4: They don't always look like the people that they're made to look like. No, No, I don't know that I was really all that impressed with very many of them.

11:42 Speaker 2: Did you find it creepy walking through all of these?

11:44 Speaker 4: It was creepy, and the lights are kind of low. Maybe they're hoping you're not going to notice.

11:49 Speaker 3: I don't know. It seems like the that's the trek.

11:52 Speaker 1: Did you see light? Did you see any that you looked at that where you thought this one doesn't look quite right. I wonder if if the person who created this particular wax figure was had been pulled out of retirement and was feeling resentful.

12:04 Speaker 3: I did not think that.

12:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, and not feeling well.

12:07 Speaker 1: And not feeling well even occurred to me. Yeah, yeah, What.

12:12 Speaker 2: Was your favorite part of being there?

12:14 Speaker 3: Being in London?

12:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just curious, like, was there a favorite location.

12:19 Speaker 3: Or a coven?

12:20 Speaker 4: Garden is my favorite place probably in the world. It's well, I haven't traveled that much, but London is pretty far from home. Covent Garden is like a big sort of outdoor mall but a lot older, so really old buildings. It's kind of open, but it has a roof on it and they have like flea market stalls kinds of things and shops. They have, Ay, they used to have a magic stand, like they had magicians there and they were selling the little cheap magic trips tricks that you buy and usually street performers and that's a lot of fun.

13:04 Speaker 1: There's a little bit more to this. So the guy of this Patty Dunning, guy said, when I had to look at the statue. I walked in to launch it, and when I saw it, I didn't get that feeling that I normally get from pj's fantastic work. My heart sunk a little bit. We went ahead with the launch, and I didn't sleep last night. Unquote. Asked by O'Connor on the radio program if the Dublin National Wax Museum was doing this to get publicity, Dunning said, quote no, absolutely not. The Wax Museum runs itself without publicity.

13:36 Speaker 1: We have a launch and that's it. I had to take the decision to cancel the statue, and we'll go again, and we'll remodel, and we have to do better on this occasion. Quote