In the Season 1 Game of Thrones episode “Fire and Blood,” King Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) gruesomely forces Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) to look at her dead father’s decapitated head, which he has propped up on a spike. Joffrey then points out the heads of her dad’s household staff, who’ve suffered the same fate. However, if you pay close attention to one of the spiked noggins in question, it bears a slight resemblance to a former U.S. president.
You can check out the shot for yourself right here:
In the DVD commentary for the episode, series creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss revealed that the head all the way on the left was modeled after George W. Bush. And before you jump to any conclusions, they were quick to point out that this wasn’t a political statement. On the contrary, they simply had to use whatever props they had lying around, and for whatever reason, Bush’s head was available to them. This would appear to be backed up by the fact that the head is facing away from the camera and has long hair, unlike Bush himself.
‘Game of Thrones’ Once Put George W. Bush’s Head on a Spike
But despite the reasonable explanation for the head’s inclusion, people were outraged once word of it hit the internet. This prompted an apology from HBO, in which they said that they were “deeply dismayed” by the situation and found it “unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste.” The network also made their feelings clear to the show’s producers, who apologized for what they called a “careless mistake.”
Furthermore, it was announced that the footage would be removed from future home video releases.
Benioff and Weiss issued a statement of their own as well, clarifying that they’d used a lot of prosthetic body parts on Game of Thrones, but couldn’t afford to have them all made from scratch. For that reason, they had to resort to renting them in bulk. “In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise,” they wrote in conclusion.
You can listen to George R.R. Martin recount the story to Stephen King in the video below.
The post 15 Years Ago, a ‘Game of Thrones’ Episode Featured the Decapitated Head of a Former U.S. President appeared first on VICE.
