LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) — Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been repeatedly defaced and a petition demanding its removal has gained 40,000 signatures, officials said.
The defacements have been documented at various times on social media, beginning with an accidental one, Politico reports. The first image to circulate online came when a service animal defecated on Trump’s star. The photo made its way onto Twitter and since then people have regularly been defacing it.
The incidents have been happening for months and CNN reports a person in a Trump mask who regularly hangs around the star along with other celebrity lookalikes and takes pictures with tourists for money has been harassed and threatened.
In addition to the dog feces, people have urinated on the star, painted a Nazi swastika on it and someone used a stencil to spray paint a mute sign on it.
An online petition has been circulated, demanding the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which oversees the Walk of Fame, remove Trump’s star, which was instilled in 2007. That, however, cannot happen, officials said.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a registered national landmark and thus, no star has ever been removed, the group’s president said.
The Walk of Fame has also thus far resisted calls to remove disgraced comedian Bill Cosby‘s star, despite public outrage after he was accused by dozens of women of sexual assault.
