Kalel Kitten’s Newest Video? A Holiday Shopping Plea: Don’t Buy BCBG’s Angora

YouTube Star’s peta2 Video Reveals Fur Ripped out of Live Rabbits’ Skin

For Immediate Release:
November 11, 2014

Contact:
Alexis Sadoti 202-483-7382

Nearly 2 million viewers subscribe to Kalel Kitten‘s WatchUsLiveAndStuff YouTube channel—and what they’re about to see in her latest video may shock them. “Do you know what angora wool is or where it comes from?” Kalel asks in the video, created for peta2, PETA’s youth division. “Before I watched videos like this one, I didn’t.” Kalel goes on to reveal how workers on angora rabbit farms in China—the source of 90 percent of the angora sold around the world—tie rabbits down and violently rip the fur out of their skin by the fistful as the animals scream in pain. “You can help stop this cruelty,” she says. “When you’re considering buying a sweater or scarf, please read the label, and if it says ‘angora,’ leave it on the rack.”

In the accompanying video interview with peta2—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—Kalel speaks out against one retailer that still sells angora wool: BCBG, which also sells fur from Asiatic raccoon dogs, animals who are often stomped on, beaten, and sometimes even skinned alive on fur farms. Foxes and other animals also suffer and are killed so that BCBG can turn their fur into scarves, vests, and collars. “I’m so mad at BCBG because I know that they did speak out against fur at one point and now they’re selling it again,” Kalel says. “And I just don’t understand why anyone would buy it. … [Y]ou don’t need any animal items in your wardrobe, period.”

peta2 and Kalel are asking everyone to go to peta2.com and send a letter calling on BCBG to join the dozens of top retailers—including Forever 21, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Limited Brands, H&M, Gap Inc., and Victoria’s Secret—that have completely banned fur and angora wool.

Kalel joins a growing list of celebrities—including P!nk, Olivia Munn, Audrey Kitching, Lea Michele, and Megan Massacre—who have teamed up with peta2 to speak out against cruelty to animals.

For more information, please visit peta2.com or click here.