HBO Apologizes for Decapitating George W. Bush on Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones
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.
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"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."
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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.
Do you think the use of Bush's head was disrespectful?