Rihanna fans are turning up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to see a marble statue of the pop star that was showcased on social media last month.
But, as The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, there’s a problem: The statue doesn’t exist.
Ahead of this year’s Met Gala, Vogue shared a video that showed a digitally-created marble likeness of pregnant Rihanna in the museum. The singer shared the clip with her nearly 107 million followers, captioning it: “shut down the met in marble! what’s more gilded than that? Lol! Thank you @metmuseum and @voguemagazine for this historic tribute! y’all bad for this one!”
shut down the met in marble! what’s more gilded than that? Lol! Thank you @metmuseum and @voguemagazine for this historic tribute! y’all bad for this one! pic.twitter.com/NawYMd0RpL
— Rihanna (@rihanna) May 3, 2022
A spokesperson for the Met told the WSJ that only a few of the 10,000 people who visit the museum daily ask about the Rihanna statue but a security guard said she gets asked at least twice a week.
“I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, we’re not that cool,’” she said. “‘We don’t have a statue of Rihanna. We can show you where Perseus and Medusa is.’”
Allison McCulloch admitted she spent 40 minutes searching for the marble Rihanna but gave up when she overheard three other people asking guards where it was located. “The guards were shaking their heads” no, she told the WSJ.