Pharrell Face-Off: PETA to Confront Singer Over Fur Designs at Toronto Film Fest

For Immediate Release:
September 5, 2024

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Bearing signs proclaiming, “Fur Is Dead” and “Pharrell: Stop Killing Animals for Fashion,” PETA supporters will converge outside the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Pharrell Williams’ LEGO-animated biopic, Piece by Piece, on Saturday to call out the Louis Vuitton men’s creative director for his disgraceful use of wild-animal skins and fur.

Where: Scotiabank Theatre Toronto, 259 Richmond St. W., Toronto

When: Saturday, September 7, 8 a.m.

Interviews will be available on site and remotely. Photos of the event will be available via Dropbox after 10a.m. on Saturday.

“While Pharrell’s life story is told at the Toronto International Film Festival, vulnerable animals’ lives are being cut mercilessly short on filthy factory farms and in slaughterhouses, all so their body parts can be stitched into Louis Vuitton’s fleeting fashion pieces,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Pharrell to use his power for good, stop being complicit in cruelty, and push Louis Vuitton into the 21^st century by refusing to use animal skins and fur.”

A PETA Asia investigation into slaughterhouses in Indonesia that supply Louis Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH, shows snakes being inflated with water, bashed with hammers, and cut with razors while likely still conscious. PETA entities have also documented how workers in the fashion industry hack at crocodiles’ necks and shove metal rods down their spines, chop off conscious lizards’ heads with machetes, and electrically stun ostriches before slitting their throats in full view of their terrified flockmates. Animals raised and killed for fur are confined to tiny, filthy cages before they’re electrocuted, bludgeoned, gassed, or even skinned alive.

PETA notes that many other major designers—including Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, Burberry, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood—have banned using the skins of reptiles or other wildlife and nearly all top luxury fashion houses have banned the use of fur.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.