Never disrespect Aaliyah.
Yesterday marked 18 years since the tragic death of Aaliyah when the singer’s plane from the islands to Florida went down killing six people in total. Weeks before the singer’s anniversary of death, Madame Tussauds debuted a wax figure in memory of the “Rock The Boat” singer that was well received by fans and family. Unfortunately, some individuals have taken their time with the figure too far since Aaliyah’s team issued a statement on Twitter asking for people to respect the figure that resides in Las Vegas.
In the images below, you can see that some fans have changed Aaliyah’s hair and one fan was even caught putting lipgloss on the wax figure. “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 ! Below is inappropriate and unacceptable #TeamAaliyah,” read the tweet.
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 ! Below is inappropriate and unacceptable #TeamAaliyah pic.twitter.com/QBcsHNdkfB
— Aaliyah (@AaliyahHaughton) August 26, 2019
After months of petitions calling for the figure, the organization decided to craft Aaliyah’s likeness in honor of her “Try Again” music video outfit, Adam Morey, Studios Manager for Madame Tussauds Las Vegas, explained why this decision was made.
“It was clear right away it would be the ‘Try Again’ look for our Aaliyah figure. The look has the sexy, edgy, timeless vibe we try to imbue in the Las Vegas attraction within all our creative choices,” he said. “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.”
In short…behave, y’all.