Matt Connarton Unleashed: Sinead O'Connor wax figure disaster

0:00 Speaker 1: Speaking of across the Pond, I just saw this story

0:04 Speaker 1: pop up about Shnead O'Connor and her wax figure. Apparently

0:09 Speaker 1: it's been pulled because it looks terrible to see this,

0:13 Speaker 1: to see this film. Yeah, this is from The Guardian.

0:16 Speaker 1: Shnead O'Connor waxwork pulled from Dublin Museum after backlash. The

0:21 Speaker 1: Irish singer's brother speaks of shock at hideous figure which

0:26 Speaker 1: looked nothing like her. And when I look at the

0:29 Speaker 1: image in the article again this is from the Guardian,

0:32 Speaker 1: it looks like reminds me of I forget the name

0:36 Speaker 1: of the character now from the first Star Trek movie,

0:39 Speaker 1: the woman with the shaved head. But yeah, it says

0:43 Speaker 1: Dublin's Wax Museum is withdrawing a figure of Shanead O'Connor.

0:47 Speaker 1: I mean criticism from her family and members of the

0:49 Speaker 1: public that it looked nothing like her. Man he reacted

0:52 Speaker 1: with shock when the waxwork figure was unveiled on Thursday.

0:56 Speaker 1: The museum's team met on Friday morning and decided to

0:59 Speaker 1: remove the wax work of the Irish singer, admitting that

1:02 Speaker 1: it can do better and pledging to create a more

1:05 Speaker 1: accurate representation her brother, John O'Connor, said he was shocked

1:09 Speaker 1: when he first saw it online and said it did

1:11 Speaker 1: not look like her at all. Uh. Speaking on r

1:15 Speaker 1: t A radio's Liveline program on Friday after it was

1:19 Speaker 1: announced the figure would be withdrawn, he said he had

1:22 Speaker 1: not been made aware that a waxwork of his sister

1:27 Speaker 1: 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,

1:33 Speaker 2: 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

1:40 Speaker 2: 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

1:58 Speaker 1: very first movie in seventy nine. You know, the one

2:00 Speaker 1: where they had the uniforms that looked like pajamas. There's

2:04 Speaker 1: a character with a honestly a female with a bald head. Yeah,

2:10 Speaker 1: I know.

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

2:13 Speaker 3: of her name.

2:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, The brother said quote. When I saw it online yesterday,

2:18 Speaker 1: I was shocked. I thought it looked something between a

2:21 Speaker 1: mannequin and something out of the Thunderbirds. I thought she

2:24 Speaker 1: made would have been very fond of looking well, and

2:27 Speaker 1: she certainly did. And if it was supposed to be

2:29 Speaker 1: a representation of her in her early twenties when she

2:33 Speaker 1: did nothing compares to you. It just looked nothing like her.

2:36 Speaker 1: I thought it was hideous. A friend of mine said

2:39 Speaker 1: to me last night that he'd be that he'd seen

2:41 Speaker 1: better in Shaw's department store in the window. There's also

2:46 Speaker 1: enough visual stuff out there in terms of videos and

2:49 Speaker 1: photos that show what she did look like. Unquote. O'Connor

2:54 Speaker 1: suggested that a better way to honor his sister would

2:56 Speaker 1: be to put a statue of her in Dublin. He

2:59 Speaker 1: said it was particularly upsetting to speak about the issue

3:01 Speaker 1: on Friday, the first anniversary of her death at the

3:04 Speaker 1: age of fifty six. Okay, so it was a year

3:06 Speaker 1: 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

3:17 Speaker 1: 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

3:26 Speaker 2: 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

3:35 Speaker 2: lot of pain and suffering in her life that channeled

3:38 Speaker 2: into her music. That actually promoted her popularity because people

3:42 Speaker 2: could relate to her pain. Yeah, in ways that nobody

3:46 Speaker 2: else had brought it out. She was very unique, very

3:48 Speaker 2: 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

3:59 Speaker 2: positive on how many. But it's weird that they would

4:02 Speaker 2: put up something like this and unveil it but not

4:04 Speaker 2: have the like when you want the family present to

4:07 Speaker 2: unveil the statue, you would think.

4:09 Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean unless they were thinking, uh, oh,

4:12 Speaker 1: this doesn't look that great. Let's just not say anything

4:14 Speaker 1: and maybe they won't notice, you.

4:17 Speaker 2: Know, But really, did you see how many people started

4:20 Speaker 2: out for her funeral. No one's gonna notice. Give me

4:23 Speaker 2: a break.

4:23 Speaker 1: Well, you know, if you just you keep it on

4:25 Speaker 1: the d L you know, with the wax figure, just

4:28 Speaker 1: just let it get out there organically, you know, maybe

4:31 Speaker 1: you know, but that way, if the family doesn't know

4:34 Speaker 1: right away, you know, but it's been there for a while,

4:36 Speaker 1: it's harder.

4:37 Speaker 3: You know.

4:37 Speaker 1: Then it's like, say a year went by and the

4:39 Speaker 1: family had no idea, and then one day the brother

4:41 Speaker 1: notices if it's already been there for a year, it'd

4:43 Speaker 1: be kind of awkward for the brother to be like, hey,

4:45 Speaker 1: can you get rid of this? It's like a dude,

4:46 Speaker 1: it's already been there a year.

4:49 Speaker 2: The facial structure isn't even close. Wow, I'm looking at

4:52 Speaker 2: this man again and looking at the pictures of her

4:54 Speaker 2: 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

5:00 Speaker 1: 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

5:07 Speaker 1: Irish people. It's just hard to stop it. I can

5:10 Speaker 1: 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

5:19 Speaker 1: people have large heads. For mother, and yeah, no kidding. Yeah,

5:23 Speaker 1: she was pretty torn up about it. But oh but

5:26 Speaker 1: I realized years ago what No, she was like, well,

5:29 Speaker 1: my son was a freakishly large head. That's uh, that's upsetting,

5:33 Speaker 1: but years ago, years and years ago. See, I never

5:36 Speaker 1: realized it for a lot of my life. And then

5:38 Speaker 1: one night I'm watching Conan O'Brien and he made a

5:40 Speaker 1: joke about his own very large head and said, Irish

5:42 Speaker 1: people have large heads. And I'd never thought about this

5:44 Speaker 1: is one hundred percent true. By the way, this isn't

5:46 Speaker 1: just to be funny. This is true. And I'd never

5:48 Speaker 1: thought about it before until he said that. I was like, wait,

5:50 Speaker 1: do I have a large head? And I went to

5:51 Speaker 1: look in the bathroom mirror and I was like, yeah,

5:53 Speaker 1: I do have a large head. And I'd never thought

5:55 Speaker 1: about it before, but I do. And then I realized

5:57 Speaker 1: that it is true. Like Chris Matthews. I used to

6:00 Speaker 1: watch a lot of hardball, Chris Matthews, he has a

6:03 Speaker 1: large head. He's got a big Irish, big Irish melon.

6:06 Speaker 1: 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

6:12 Speaker 1: I thought, wow, I do I have a big Irish

6:13 Speaker 1: I look like a South Park character. I got this

6:16 Speaker 1: enormous head, but that's okay. I need a large head

6:19 Speaker 1: to hold my enormous brain. Oh my god. So that's

6:23 Speaker 1: why Irish people are saying.

6:24 Speaker 2: To shove him through the door, to fit him through.

6:27 Speaker 2: At the end of the day, that's.

6:28 Speaker 1: Why we're so smart. We have enormous heads to hold

6:31 Speaker 1: our enormous brains. See, it all makes sense. But I

6:35 Speaker 1: have to say, in this pigure, this picture of the

6:39 Speaker 1: wax figure, I can't see how large the head is

6:42 Speaker 1: in proportion with the rest of the body. So I

6:45 Speaker 1: don't know if they made her with a large head

6:47 Speaker 1: or she even had a large head. I never noticed

6:49 Speaker 1: 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

7:10 Speaker 1: wax figure they created her with a larger head than

7:12 Speaker 1: she actually had because they figured, well, she's Irish, obviously

7:15 Speaker 1: we need to put this symnormous head on top of

7:17 Speaker 1: the well.

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

7:20 Speaker 2: 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

7:31 Speaker 1: 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.

7:43 Speaker 1: 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,

7:57 Speaker 1: I lost my sister, and to me that's important. Since

8:00 Speaker 1: she's not here to defend herself or to speak for herself.

8:03 Speaker 1: I just took it upon myself to contact you about it.

8:06 Speaker 1: Unquote yeah, because sometimes like because it's not like they

8:11 Speaker 1: only do wax figures of dead people, right, Sometimes they

8:15 Speaker 1: do wax figures of people who are alive. Like somebody

8:17 Speaker 1: somewhere made a wax figure of the rock, and I

8:19 Speaker 1: remember the rock was like making fun of it, like, wow,

8:21 Speaker 1: that doesn't look like me.

8:23 Speaker 4: There's a whole museum in London, Madame Tussau's wax museum

8:27 Speaker 4: full of people who are still a lot. Did you

8:29 Speaker 4: go there when you were I did not that visit

8:32 Speaker 4: to London, but a previous visit to London.

8:35 Speaker 1: Oh okay, going there now, if you were to walk

8:37 Speaker 1: in there, like if you were to walk in there

8:39 Speaker 1: today and they had a wax figure of Shinead O'Connor

8:41 Speaker 1: and it looked like this, would you say something? Would

8:43 Speaker 1: you be like, hey, what do you people doing?

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

8:48 Speaker 3: 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

8:54 Speaker 4: look at the next thing.

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

8:58 Speaker 1: 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,

9:04 Speaker 1: 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

9:12 Speaker 4: 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

9:19 Speaker 4: of that movie is that they weren't wax figures, they

9:21 Speaker 4: 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

9:30 Speaker 4: 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

9:38 Speaker 4: sort of recently become aware of Doctor Who. I started

9:42 Speaker 4: dating a guy in nineteen seventy nine that was a

9:45 Speaker 4: big Doctor Who fan. And I went to London in

9:47 Speaker 4: nineteen eighty two and I saw in all these wax

9:49 Speaker 4: 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

10:00 Speaker 2: 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.

10:14 Speaker 1: Paddy Dunning the Wax Museum, that's a very patty. Pa

10:19 Speaker 1: d d Y, that's a very ash name. The wax

10:21 Speaker 1: Museum director, who said he was a longtime friend of

10:24 Speaker 1: Sinead O'Connor oh apologize to the family. He said that

10:32 Speaker 1: the wax Museum sculptor PJ. Harrodt Harridy delivered the figure

10:39 Speaker 1: the night before it was unveiled. He said the artists

10:42 Speaker 1: had done fantastic work in previous years, but has not

10:46 Speaker 1: been been feeling well and had retired. I get it.

10:50 Speaker 1: So the artist wasn't feeling well.

10:53 Speaker 2: And they pulled him out of retirement apparently to this. Yes,

10:57 Speaker 2: so there might have been a little spite involved there.

11:00 Speaker 1: Right, he was probably like I was retired. I was

11:03 Speaker 1: enjoying my retirement. But now I'm resentful, so I'm going

11:07 Speaker 1: to sabotage the oor wax figure. Yes, yeah, Patty, that

11:12 Speaker 1: is Patty angry. If I were if I were a

11:15 Speaker 1: resentful wax figure sculptor, I would not you know, I

11:20 Speaker 1: just I would still try to do a good job,

11:23 Speaker 1: 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,

11:30 Speaker 2: they look like dead people standing.

11:32 Speaker 4: They don't always look like the people that they're made

11:36 Speaker 4: to look like. No, No, I don't know that I

11:39 Speaker 4: 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.

11:46 Speaker 4: 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

11:54 Speaker 1: looked at that where you thought this one doesn't look

11:56 Speaker 1: quite right. I wonder if if the person who created

12:00 Speaker 1: this particular wax figure was had been pulled out of

12:02 Speaker 1: 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,

12:25 Speaker 4: I haven't traveled that much, but London is pretty far

12:28 Speaker 4: from home. Covent Garden is like a big sort of

12:34 Speaker 4: outdoor mall but a lot older, so really old buildings.

12:39 Speaker 4: It's kind of open, but it has a roof on

12:42 Speaker 4: it and they have like flea market stalls kinds of

12:47 Speaker 4: things and shops. They have, Ay, they used to have

12:51 Speaker 4: a magic stand, like they had magicians there and they

12:54 Speaker 4: were selling the little cheap magic trips tricks that you

12:56 Speaker 4: 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

13:07 Speaker 1: of this Patty Dunning, guy said, when I had to

13:10 Speaker 1: look at the statue. I walked in to launch it,

13:12 Speaker 1: and when I saw it, I didn't get that feeling

13:14 Speaker 1: that I normally get from pj's fantastic work. My heart

13:17 Speaker 1: sunk a little bit. We went ahead with the launch,

13:20 Speaker 1: and I didn't sleep last night. Unquote. Asked by O'Connor

13:24 Speaker 1: on the radio program if the Dublin National Wax Museum

13:30 Speaker 1: was doing this to get publicity, Dunning said, quote no,

13:33 Speaker 1: absolutely not. The Wax Museum runs itself without publicity. We

13:37 Speaker 1: have a launch and that's it. I had to take

13:39 Speaker 1: the decision to cancel the statue, and we'll go again,

13:43 Speaker 1: and we'll remodel, and we have to do better on

13:46 Speaker 1: this occasion. Quote