The infamous cocaine-snorting Oscar statuette has been removed from Hollywood Boulevard just days before the Academy Awards. Plastic Jesus‘ creation of the Oscar statue using the drug popped up in L.A. on Thursday morning.
Last year, Plastic Jesus displayed an eight-foot Oscar statue using a heroin needle and labeled it “Hollywood’s Best Kept Secret.” The piece was in response to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s death last year from a heroin overdose.
This year’s appearance of the controversial statue occurred around the same time Harris Wittels, co-executive producer and writer for Parks and Recreation, was found dead due to a possible drug overdose. Nick Stern, a photographer who works with the artist, said that the statue is meant to bring awareness to the seriousness of drug-related deaths in Hollywood.
“The piece is intended to draw attention to Hollywood’s hidden problem of drug addiction that affects hundreds of people in the showbiz industry and is largely ignored until the death of a high-profile A-list celebrity,” Stern said in a statement on Plastic Jesus’ behalf to LAist.
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