Cristiano Ronaldo Bust

About

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust refers to jokes made about a statue that was intended to be the likeness of international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. The statue's poor likeness of Ronaldo made it the target of jokes on social media in late March, 2017.

Origin

On March 29th, 2017, Ronaldo attended Madeira International Airport (now renamed Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo) for the unveiling of a bust in his likeness.^[1]

Almost instantly, Twitter users began joking about the ugliness of the statue in comparison to Ronaldo. One of the earliest was tweeted by @tds153^[2] who tweeted a picture captioned, "I defy you not to feel better after viewing this picture of Cristiano Ronaldo alongside his portrait bust." His tweet gained over 2,800 retweets.

Spread

The image of the bust became a trending topic on Twitter that day, as users made jokes photoshopping the statue onto Ronaldo himself and comparing the statue to famous pop-culture monstrosities, such as Sloth from The Goonies (shown below).

The jokes were covered by The New York Times,^[1] Buzzfeed,^[3] The Verge,^[4] The Daily Dot,^[5] and more. Many commented on the fact that Ronaldo's notorious vainness helped contribute to the spread of the jokes.

2018 Remake

On March 29th, 2018, the @brfootball Twitter feed tweeted a video featuring an interview with Emanuel Santos and showcasing his updated bust of Ronaldo on the one-year anniversary of the unveiling (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 37,200 likes and 15,700 retweets.

The same day, @brfootball^[6] tweeted a photograph of the new bust next to the original, along with the message "Emmanuel Santos' shot at redemption" (shown below). Meanwhile, a Twitter Moments^[7] page titled "Artist who made meme-able Ronaldo bust finds redemption in a do-over" was created, highlighting various reactions to the new bust.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References