Video: Pharrell Faces the Music Over Deadly Fur Designs in New PETA Parody
For Immediate Release:
October 9, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Ahead of the theatrical release of Pharrell Williams’ LEGO-animated biopic, Piece by Piece, PETA has unveiled a new video that parodies his song “Happy” to slam the Louis Vuitton men’s creative director for refusing to ban wild-animal skins and fur from his collections.
The video—which features a building brick version of Pharrell wearing a blood-stained shirt—points out that tormenting and killing animals for fleeting fashion pieces “isn’t beautiful—it’s abuse.”
“Pharrell’s fashion choices are a death sentence for animals, who are crammed together in filth and often still clinging to life as workers break their necks or hack them apart,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is calling on Pharrell to build a lasting legacy at Louis Vuitton by ditching deadly designs and leaving animals in peace, not in pieces.”
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 they were 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.
In September, a PETA supporter confronted Pharrell at the Toronto International Film Festival and pleaded with the star to stop using animals’ skin and fur in his designs. Pharrell told the animal ally, “You’re right,” and claimed that he’s “working on it.” Yet PETA points out that he’s said that before but nothing has changed at LVMH. The group will gladly stop disrupting Pharrell’s appearances once he ditches wild-animal skins and fur—something he could decide to do in a heartbeat.
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.
