Miss USA Winners Star in Sexy Appeal to Pageant Industry: End Fur-Coat Prizes

Four Former Pageant Winners Team Up With PETA to Declare That They’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur

For Immediate Release:
June 13, 2013

Contact:
Wendy Wegner 202-483-7382

Las Vegas — With Miss USA 2013 fast approaching, four past winners of the pageant are teaming up with PETA for a brand-new campaign calling on the pageant community to stop awarding—and accepting—the fur coats that some state pageants still offer as prizes to winners. In the new ad, Miss USA winners Shandi Finnessey (2004), Susie Castillo (2003), Shanna Moakler (1995), and Alyssa Campanella (2011) appear au naturel next to the words “Feel Beautiful in Your Own Skin, and Let Animals Keep Theirs.” The ad, available here, was shot by top pageant photographer Fadil Berisha.

In a video interview with PETA, the pageant winners explained that many of them were once awarded furs, only to learn later how animals are beaten, electrocuted, and skinned alive for fur. “I’ve been an animal lover all my life, and the more I learned of the torture that animals go through in the name of fashion, I just think it’s so unnecessary … it’s unbelievable to me,” says Castillo. She added that she feels “blessed” to team up with her pageant sisters “to take a stand united and to tell the pageant industry not to support the fur industry.”

“As long as I’m the director of Miss Nevada, we will never award fur coats as prizes, and I urge my fellow pageant directors to make the same pledge,” Moakler said in a statement to PETA. “Kind people today are taking a stand against cruelty to animals—so a fur coat is no prize for a compassionate, socially-aware woman.”

Summer may not be a popular season for wearing fur, but it’s one of the worst for animals on fur farms, who are kept year-round in cramped, filthy cages with little to no protection from the elements. During the summer, countless animals (particularly young ones) suffer from heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Past stars of PETA’s anti-fur ad campaigns include Charlize Theron, Taraji P. Henson, Eva Mendes, Olivia Munn, and Elisabetta Canalis.

For more information or to view the ad, please visit PETA.org or click here.