30 years later, the place are Michael Jackson’s big ‘HIStory’ statues now?
A number of big Michael Jackson statues based mostly on his 1995 album ‘HIStory: Previous, Current and Future, E book I’ are nonetheless standing in some elements of the world, greater than 30 years later.
As much as 10 statues had been constructed all over the world to advertise the album, together with one which floated on a barge down the River Thames on the time.
Hertfordshire-based artist Stephen Pyle, was commissioned to construct them and he employed sculptor Derek Howarth to craft the statue in polystyrene sections, which Pyle used to make moulds and fibreglass casts.
They had been then assembled in Chris and Liz Clark’s workshop at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, the place they had been painted to seem like stone.
This week is 30 years since Michael Jackson launched his album HIStory.
It was promoted with big statues all all over the world.
However what occurred to these statues 30 years later? pic.twitter.com/5aeocxm4Jw
— Danny Fullbrook (@Danny_Fullbrook) June 22, 2025
Pyle instructed BBC News: “Making 10 statues in 4 months was fairly the problem, however due to Derek, Chris, Liz and the remainder of my workshop crew on the time, we turned fairly the environment friendly manufacturing unit for Michael Jackson monoliths!”
Some are nonetheless standing together with one in an deserted courtyard of a nightclub in Austria.
Proprietor Franz Josef Zika, who received the statue in 1998 at a radio charity public sale in assist of the Pink Cross, has been making an attempt to promote the statue in Vienna for the previous two years.
He instructed the BBC: I might be glad if I get €25,000 (£21,000) for it. I’ve had some curiosity from Sweden and a few in Hungary, however the issue is folks don’t manage to pay for.”
One other statue additionally stays standing at a former theme park in Johannesburg, in South Africa and at an amusement park in Italy, regardless of getting a recent coat of paint and a brand new pair of sun shades in 2019.
The primary of 9 32-foot-tall statues of Michael Jackson appeared on June fifteenth, 1995, within the UK, floating on the River Thames in London. Have you learnt what different cities performed host to the giant-sized Michael as a part of the worldwide marketing campaign to advertise the HIStory album?#HIStory30 pic.twitter.com/spQNE5fcyw
— Michael Jackson (@michaeljackson) June 13, 2025
However following the airing of the documentary Leaving Neverland that very same 12 months, which centred on testimony by Wade Robson, 36, and James Safechuck, 41, who alleged that they had been sexually abused as kids by Jackson, quite a few them have since been taken down.
This included one which towered over a McDonald’s automotive park within the village of Greatest within the Netherlands and one other at an annual fairground occasion in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Elsewhere, a statue unconnected with the album, which was commissioned by late Fulham FC chairman, Mohammed Al Fayed, after Jackson’s loss of life in June 2009, was additionally faraway from Manchester’s Nationwide Soccer Museum, following the documentary.
In the meantime, the discharge of the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic was lately delayed till 2027, with the studio now contemplating splitting it into two movies.
Titled Michael, the film is about to inform the story of the life and profession of Jackson, with the King of Pop to be portrayed by his real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson.
The movie has already attracted some criticism, together with from Dan Reed – the director of Leaving Neverland – who lately criticised the making of the brand new biopic, saying it “will glorify a person who raped kids”.