Gigantic Marilyn Monroe statue in Palm Springs will be moved after uproar

After years of controversy and a protracted legal battle, a fixture of the Palm Springs tourist scene is set to move.

The Forever Marilyn statue, a 26-foot commemoration of Monroe’s famous skirt scene from 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch,” has drawn the ire of locals and visiting critics alike since it returned to Palm Springs in 2021. It currently stands in the middle of Downtown Park, with Monroe’s sculpted back facing the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The statue will be resettled in a “location to be determined in the Downtown Park,” Palm Springs Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in a statement. “The City Council is very pleased to have found a satisfactory solution to this issue, which has divided so many within our community.”

The statue will not be moving far: the park spans only 1.5 acres, and the statue will stay within its boundaries.

Trina Turk, a fashion designer, was among those who led the effort to get the statue relocated.

The GoFundMe page administered by Turk, which raised more than $115,000 to lobby the city to move the statue, expressed cautious optimism about the decision in a recent post.

“There are still many details to be resolved, and a legally binding agreement to be worked out,” the post read. “We will not consider this a done deal until the statue is moved to its new location.”

The statue left Palm Springs in 2014 before returning in 2021. “Good news because good riddance,” Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote in 2014.

In the debate over the statue’s placement in 2021, Palm Springs Art Museum director Louis Grachos told the council that museum visitors, particularly schoolchildren, would stare at Marilyn’s backside and underwear on their way to the museum’s entrance.

The City Council ultimately approved the statue’s location for three years beginning in 2021, despite protests from those in the community and critics like Knight who said it was sexist. It took up residence in a busy section of downtown Palm Springs near the art museum.

Knight described the return of the statue this way: “An anti-queer slur was lifted high onto a civic pedestal in one of America’s least likely places.”

The city’s decision to move the statue from its current location dissatisfied some in Palm Springs. 

On the city’s Facebook post announcing the move, the top comments were all from residents and visitors who disagreed with the plan.

One wrote that tourists “love taking photos there.”

“It’s a shame you caved to the pressure to relocate her,” another wrote.