HBO Apologizes for Decapitating George W. Bush on Game of Thrones
I saw this on tvguide.com and laughed out loud.
In the strangest cameo of the year, George W. Bush's (fake) severed head
made an unexpected appearance on Game of Thrones.
The prop head, which was mostly covered with a long wig, was shown decapitated
and displayed on a stake during the HBO drama's first season finale. This little easter
egg can be spotted when the sadistic King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) forced Sansa Stark
(Sophie Tuner) to see her own father among a series of severed heads displayed for
the citizens of King's Landing. Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss pointed
out the inappropriate prop during an episode commentary for the Season 1 DVD.
"The last head on the left is George Bush," the creators said. "George Bush's head
appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement.
We just had to use whatever heads we had lying around."
Benioff and Weiss have since apologized, saying they regret pointing out the former
president's brief appearance. "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show:
heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially
in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene
was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George
W. Bush. ... We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if
anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
HBO released an apology as well. "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find
it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," the statement read. "We made
this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for
this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed
from any future DVD production."
HBO also said the shot would be removed from all future versions of the DVD.
In the strangest cameo of the year, George W. Bush's (fake) severed head
made an unexpected appearance on Game of Thrones.
The prop head, which was mostly covered with a long wig, was shown decapitated
and displayed on a stake during the HBO drama's first season finale. This little easter
egg can be spotted when the sadistic King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) forced Sansa Stark
(Sophie Tuner) to see her own father among a series of severed heads displayed for
the citizens of King's Landing. Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss pointed
out the inappropriate prop during an episode commentary for the Season 1 DVD.
"The last head on the left is George Bush," the creators said. "George Bush's head
appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement.
We just had to use whatever heads we had lying around."
Benioff and Weiss have since apologized, saying they regret pointing out the former
president's brief appearance. "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show:
heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially
in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene
was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George
W. Bush. ... We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if
anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
HBO released an apology as well. "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find
it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste," the statement read. "We made
this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for
this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed
from any future DVD production."
HBO also said the shot would be removed from all future versions of the DVD.