World's Tallest Messi Statue in Cutral Có Goes Viral for Unintentional Lewdness

An 85-foot-tall (26-meter) statue of Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, billed as the world's tallest, was unveiled in Cutral Có, Argentina, and quickly went viral for its inadvertently provocative design. The sculpture, created by self-taught Patagonian sculptor Aldo Beroisa, depicts Messi kneeling behind a World Cup trophy placed directly in front of his crotch, leading to lewd interpretations from multiple angles. Beroisa told the New York Times he positioned the trophy there due to structural concerns, as the work weighs 70 tons of steel and concrete. The statue was erected weeks after a 70-foot (21-meter) Messi statue in Kolkata, India, was dismantled after six months due to safety concerns over swaying in the wind. The Kolkata statue had also been widely mocked online for its poor likeness. The Cutral Có statue has drawn similar criticism, continuing a trend of unflattering commemorative sculptures that have also affected figures like Cristiano Ronaldo, Dwyane Wade, Martin Luther King Jr., and Tina Turner.