When ‘Game of Thrones’ put George W. Bush’s head on a spike

The scene in question was a part of the season 1 finale, featuring King Joffrey Baratheon and Sansa Stark

Game of Thrones may be a distant memory for some of its fan base after the series finale disappointed many, but that’s not to say that the series gave us many a good moment throughout its eight-year-long run on HBO.

One of these moments that may have skipped your memory is the season one classic where the show runners put the 43rd President of The United States’ head on a spike! Yes, a season one scene briefly featured the head of former president George W. Bush mounted on a spike for all to see, as reported b y The Guardian back in 2012.

The scene in focus depicted Bush’s severed head on a spike near the beginning of the mega-hit series’ first ever season finale. The scene features King Joffrey Baratheon, played by Jack Gleeson, and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), where he forces her to see her father Ned Stark’s (Sean Bean) head propped on a spike. The president’s head, although not completely visible, is not hard to recognise from the bottom half of it.

The moment ofcourse went viral even back in the time, and following the intense attention, the cable network and show runners were forced to issue an apology. "We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production,” said HBO in an official statement.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who carried the show for 8 seasons, even acknowledged the instance in a commentary feature on the show's DVD box set. They cleared out that it wasn’t used a political statement. "George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around," they said.

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush,” they had further explained.

Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below