The Hosier Lane mural honouring the ‘death of Taylor Swift’ has been painted over after just one day.
The portrait of Swift (or ‘Smith’) was first seen plastered on a wall in a famous Melbourne graffiti lane way on Wednesday, following the singer’s public row with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
Her undeniable likeness was painted alongside the name ‘Taylor Smith’ – a likely avoidance of potential defamation lawsuits. Underneath the portrait, in bold capital letters it also reads: “NO TAGS PLEASE RESPECT THE DEAD.”
Around 3am this morning though, the man behind the original Taylor work, Lushsux, posted a photo of the newly defaced Taylor Swift mural on Instagram with the caption: “WHO DID THIS?!?!”
He told The Herald Sun that just hours after the original artwork had been debuted, someone Snapchatted him showing something crude painted over Swift’s mouth.
The mock memorial now has a less attractive Spongebob Squarepants caveman face scrawled over it and the words ‘In loving memory of Harambe’ – the gorilla shot dead by U.S. zookeepers in May.
Should I fix up sweet princess Tay Tay’s wall?
A photo posted by lushsux (@lushsux) on
He said:
I went down to Hosier at around three in the morning to see if any rabid Taylor Swift fans had added to the mess and was greeted with a Harambe memorial instead of a Taylor Swift.
Got to just laugh about that I guess.
The Spongebob Squarepants draw-over, however, may have been his doing. Speaking to NY Daily News, Lushsux said before the defacing of Taylor occurred, he was considering the idea of putting Caveman Spongebob’s face over hers.
He added that it would have been nice if Taylor had lasted a bit longer, but added Hosier Lane is notorious for that sort of thing, saying: “Nothing lasts there.” And we’re assuming T Swifty and her people are happy about that.
Apparently, Lushsux said he received an email from Tay’s attorneys asking that the artwork be taken down.
The Melbourne-based painter called the alleged correspondence from Swift’s attorney ‘your typical cease and desist kind of legalese garble email,’ but declined to go into detail about the contents of the alleged email, citing legal reasons, NY Daily News reports.
At the time, the artist had no plans to destroy the mural. But now that ‘Taylor Smith’ has been turned into Harambe the gorilla, we’re not sure he’ll have to. Or maybe he’ll just make another…
