Britain's Queen left bald underneath hat in German waxwork to ‘cut costs,’ outrage in UK

Germany’s Panoptikum wax museum on Thursday, Jan 27 landed in a pool of controversy and sparked widespread outrage across Britain for giving a replica wax statue of the English monarch Queen Elizabeth II only half a head of hair. During a press photocall, while reopening the museum in Hamburg after year-long renovation work, a member was seen cleaning a surprising ‘bald’ patch under the Queen’s headpiece.

“A look behind the scenes: Our boss was actively supported by Hamburg Guide today,” the museum wrote on its Facebook page as it shared the images of the British Queen with no hair, while sufficient golden manes on top of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s wax statue were being curled. This upset the English. 

Hair is ‘expensive'

The museum said the managing partner Dr Susanne Faerber, chose not to give full hair to the Queen’s statue as the hair is ‘expensive.’ But the statue of the Queen without complete hair angered the Brits, who deemed it ‘disrespectful’ to install a waxwork of the monarch that is actually bald. The monarch can be seen wearing a pink hat, and her hair can be seen showing from the sides and the hat matches her pink dress.

The statue completely resembles the monarch and looks carved to perfection only until one decides to lift the Queen's hat. As the incident stirred a rebuke online, the managing partner was asked whether the museum believes that displaying the 95-year-old's waxwork with a bald head was 'inappropriate.' "It is a waxwork, not the real person, this should always be kept in mind," Dr Faerber told Daily Mail. 

"As we are using real human hair for our waxworks which is very expensive, some figures which have hats don't have complete hair," Dr. Susanne Faerber, managing partner of the museum said, according to UK's Daily Mail. "We just install the amount of hair which is visible for the visitors.”

The museum situated on the Reeperbahn is the oldest and largest in Germany. It houses some 120 wax figures of prominent figures from across the world, including former US President Donald Trump, climate activist Greta Thunberg, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Pope Benedict XVI. As it reopened after renovation, the statues were being cleaned, their hair was being washed, clothes tidied and one of the managing partners was actually cleaning the bald head of the queen and air drying scanty patches on the sides, visible when a hat was installed. But the social media wasn’t pleased.

“Big shout out to Hamburg's Panoptikum wax museum for an image that will now haunt my every waking hour,” a commenter wrote, sharing the image of the Queen’s bald statue. The museum defended itself, saying that "the position of Her Majesty is in Germany different than the handling of the royal family in Great Britain, where the press has to be more sensitive dealing with them."