King Charles III's official portrait has been vandalized by a group of animal rights activists.
On Tuesday, June 11, the Instagram account Animal Rising shared a video of two people posting up stickers from the Wallace and Gromit cartoon over the royal's face, alongside a word bubble that read: "No cheese, Gromit. Look at all this cruelty on RSPCA farms!"
"King Charles Portrait Redecorated‼️‼️" they captioned one of the posts of the vandalized piece of art. "Find out why King Charles, Patron of the RSPCA should ask them to drop the Assured Scheme."
As OK! previously reported, the new painting was first unveiled at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, May 14. It was the king's first official portrait since his coronation following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.
"The new work depicts His Majesty wearing the uniform of the Welsh Guards, of which he was made Regimental Colonel in 1975," the Royal Family Instagram account wrote. "The painting will ultimately hang in Drapers’ Hall in London."
However, the deep red portrait was immediately criticized as "disturbing" and "off-putting."
"The face is really detailed though, the artist isn't bad. The haze of blood is just.... a choice," one critic noted, while a second user agreed, "I see a lot of blood."
A third quipped, "This looks like one of those paintings you'd see hanging on the walls of an abandoned building in a horror game."
The controversial painting included a small butterfly hovering just above the king's right shoulder symbolizing the "metamorphosis and rebirth" Charles experienced after ascending to the throne — a detail the monarch himself suggested to artist Jonathan Yeo.
"I said, when schoolchildren are looking at this in 200 years and they're looking at the who's who of the monarchs, what clues can you give them?" Yeo remembered asking King Charles at the time. "He said, 'what about a butterfly landing on my shoulder?'"
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However, that too was mocked by social media users.
"That butterfly is doing a lot of tonal heavy lifting," a person on Reddit joked. "'Is this painting supposed to make me feel afraid? No, there's a cute little butterfly on his shoulder.'"