Days before the 18th anniversary of her death, a new wax figure of Aaliyah was unveiled at Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas. Now her family is urging museum-goers to respect the replica after fans gave it a makeover.
On Monday, Aaliyah’s estate posted a photo of a woman applying lip gloss to the wax figure (from M.A.C.’s Aaliyah collection), and another showed someone had styled the figure’s hair differently, which prompted them to issue the following statement on Twitter to fans:
“We ask kindly that anyone visiting the Aaliyah wax figure @TussaudsVegas please treat it with respect, this has been a lot of years of hard work by her fans petitioning and her family’s @RAD_6 support,” the account wrote.
Aaliyah was memorialized wearing an outfit from her “Try Again” music video in 2000, featuring leather pants and silver sequin bra.
As reported by msn.com, Madame Tussauds’ Las Vegas told VIBE magazine that choosing this particular look was easy because it has “the sexy, edgy, timeless vibe we try to imbue in the Las Vegas attraction within all our creative choices. Mining popular culture as only Madame Tussauds can, our desire to honor Aaliyah and the look in this way was only confirmed as we see today’s Hollywood stars like Keke Palmer, Kim Kardashian, Zendaya, also paying homage by recreating their own favorite moments of the Princess of R&B.”
The singer’s family, including her brother Rashad Haughton, worked with the museum on the design.
“I was involved in the process from the inception of the project,” Haughton told Vibe. “The team at Madame Tussauds welcomed a collaborative effort in choosing the pose and look of my sister’s figure. They made sure my mother and I were comfortable and supported through an amazing but understandably emotional process.”
Sunday, August 25, was the 18th anniversary of the plane crash that claimed Aaliyah’s life.
