Banksy’s New Mural Makes It Just 3 Days Before Being Defaced
“This is why we can’t have anything nice.”

Toby Melville/Reuters
A Banksy artwork that appeared in London over the weekend has been defaced and fenced off as of Wednesday. The mysterious world-renowned artist confirmed that the piece on the side of a residential building in the north of the English capital was his doing in a series of images of the work on his Instagram account. The mural featured green paint sprayed onto a wall positioned behind a pollarded cherry tree such that the paint looked like leaves when viewed from the right angle. Local resident Matt McKenna told the BBC that he noticed that the work had been defaced with white paint as he took his dog for a walk on Wednesday morning. “It is a real shame,” he said. “It happened overnight.” Reporter Anna O’Neill shared images of the damaged work on X. “This is why we can’t have anything nice,” she captioned one of the pictures. “#Banksy mural defaced after just 3 days.”
This is why we can’t have anything nice. #Banksy mural defaced after just 3 days. pic.twitter.com/HGt7NqzUnW
— Anna O'Neill (@Annareporting) March 20, 2024
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