“I sincerely apologize,” she said in a video posted to social media.
“I am just now seeing the reaction of these images.
I went way too far.
Tyler Shields
The image is too disturbing.
I understand how it offends people.
It wasn’t funny.
I get it.”
On Tuesday, the gory and shocking image debuted and instantly drew quite a bit of outrage.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:How did you come up with the concept for this picture?
Then, once we got there, it just kind of escalated into that.
Was this a one-day shoot?
Where did you get the Trump bust on such short notice?
The shoot happened in one day, but we’d been talking about it for a while.
This is the one to do for sure."
Why did you want to pursue this one specifically?
A few different things.
Obviously, there’s the freedom of speech thing, which is great.
It’s such a timely image.
We see millions of visuals every day and to make something that really stands out is very difficult now.
That’s just me personally.
A compliment and an insult are the same thing; the insult just takes longer to write.
While you were putting this together, were there any other concerns?
It was like, “Well, I’m gonna do it and whatever happens, happens.”
Do you think you would’ve done this shoot if it were any other president?
I don’t know.
I was obviously alive duringClinton, Bush, the other Bush,Obama, and now this.
I’d say Trump is probably the most polarizing president that we’ve ever had.
But I was a very young man, so it was different.
He’s the social media president.
So, look, it’s not even about him.
What did you mean by “it’s not even about him”?
What did you and Kathy want to say with this?
I think to her, it’s absolutely about him.
I can’t speak for her, obviously.
For me, presidents are symbols.
They reflect some people’s ideals and they reflect the opposite of some other people’s ideals.
Right now, this guy is the opposite of a lot of people’s ideals.
But also, there’s a lot of people that think he’s great.
That’s their own opinion, their own idea.
Again, I can’t sit here and tell you that someone is not allowed to have their opinion.
That’s why I’m allowed to make this art.
For me, that’s more what this is about.
you’ve got the option to have your opinion.
Is testing the first amendment the driving ethos behind the project?
Again, you have Kathy’s ideal of it and then you have that other side of it.
Look, to me, I see both sides of it.
I like to make this and let other people figure out what it means to them.
You mentioned how Kathy made that joke about bailing her out of prison.
Did you give any more thought to what the public backlash would be?
That’s the beautiful thing about stuff like this: there’s always going to be backlash.
I think a lot of people fear backlash.
It’s this thing of, “Well, I want everyone to like me.
I want everyone to like the work that I make,” especially young artists.
That’s the fun of making things.
Am I saying that anyone should actually be killed?
No, it’s like a movie.
How many movies are there where the president gets killed or this happens?
They see it as reality and that’s why it’s so shocking to some people.
Why do you think people are fine watching a movie but take an image like this as reality?
That’s a whole other conversation, which is really interesting.
It was a fake black eye.
Well, how does that make any sense?
With a movie, people sit down and they know it’s a movie.
But if you make an image… You mentioned you considered several other ideas for the shoot.
What were some of those ideas?
I advised against that because I think the Cheetos would’ve probably destroyed her bathtub.
I just don’t think you ever get that out.
So that was one.
I wanted to get an American flag ball gag for her, but it just didn’t look good.
But, that’s part of the process.
But that’s the fun of it.
The right idea always shines.
It sounds like you weren’t necessarily looking to do something political.
Again, we shot other stuff as well.
I shot her in this latex one-piece and made her look like an ’80s supermodel.
It wasn’t like, “Wehaveto do something political.”
She’s not afraid of it and I’m not afraid of it.
I was like, “Let’s do it.”
It was, how far are you willing to go, and she was willing to go pretty far.
