Mail Call for Inmate Teresa Giudice: PETA Wants Her Furs

PETA Seeks Sympathy for Animals Imprisoned, Beaten, and Killed for Real Housewife’s Coats

For Immediate Release:
January 15, 2015

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

It worked for Martha Stewart—but will Teresa Giudice be as open to changing her old habits? This morning, PETA sent a letter to the incarcerated Real Housewives star encouraging her to reflect on the cruelty inherent in wearing fur and, hopefully, make the kind decision to go fur-free (as Stewart famously did—she later went on to narrate a documentary about how chinchillas, foxes, and other animals suffer for the trade). PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—operates a fur donation program and would be pleased to accept Giudice’s fur coats to give to needy people, use in educational displays, and supply bedding for orphaned wildlife.

“A prison stint is no picnic, except when compared to the horror of a lifetime of confinement to a cold cage on a fur factory farm and the pain of being electrocuted or bludgeoned for your skin,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “By donating her fur coats to PETA, Teresa will be doing something good for the world—and the donation would be a legitimate tax write-off, too.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Teresa Giudice is available here and below.

January 15, 2015

To: Teresa Giudice
From: Andrew Bernstein, PETA

Dear Teresa,

Greetings from PETA. We’re so sorry that you have ended up in prison. We hope you’ll make the most of your time “inside” and that while you have time to reflect on how you might do things differently once you’re out, you’ll consider the horrors that animals killed for their fur experience. The situation that you find yourself in is far better than the one that animals on fur farms endure behind cage bars—and their only “crime” is that they were born with a beautiful natural fur coat that some humans want to steal from them. Because of that, they receive a death sentence.

Please consider that however bad things may seem, you’re in clover compared to the animals whose legs are caught in steel-jaw traps or who go mad in their small cages, incarcerated for life in filthy cells on fur farms. Minks, foxes, rabbits, and chinchillas suffer greatly from such unnatural, stressful confinement. If you ever visit a fur factory farm, you will see them spinning in endless tiny circles, panicked and psychotic. In the end, these animals aren’t released back into nature to be reunited with their friends and families. Instead, they’re bludgeoned or electrocuted in the name of fashion.

Would you consider doing something kind and charitable for animals during your sentence? Will you donate your furs to PETA once you’re out of prison? We would ensure that they ended up in the hands of homeless people who could use a little extra warmth during the cold winter months and/or as bedding for animals in need. Thank you for your consideration.

Kindest regards,

Andrew Bernstein