Christa Schoeman, the makeup artist for The History Channel’s The Bible, as well as the miniseries’ executive producer have responded to the whole Satan-looks like-Obama “controversy”:

“There was not an inch of thought about President Obama in my head at any time,” said Schoeman, who laughed at the very suggestion that Satan resembles the U.S. president. “I can guarantee that President Obama had nothing to do with it in any shape or form.”

The Bible began airing in the U.S. on the History Channel two weeks ago, and Satan made his first appearance on Sunday night. The Twitterverse was immediately drawn to the character’s resemblance to a certain commander in chief.

The buzz about Obama soon grew so loud that on Monday morning, the History Channel and the film’s executive producers each released a statement debunking any link as “utter nonsense.”

“The actor who played Satan, Mehid Ouzaani, is a highly acclaimed Moroccan actor. He has previously played parts in several Biblical epics—including Satanic characters long before Barack Obama was ever elected our president,” said executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey in a statement. (He’s famous for producing Survivor; she starred in Touched by an Angel.)

Downey added that they have “nothing but respect and love for our president, who is a fellow Christian. False statements such as these are just designed as a foolish distraction to try and discredit the beauty of the Bible.”

 

Read more at The Daily Beast.
We suppose at some point someone should ask why a Moroccan dude has played Satan so much, but that’s another post.