PETA Slams Brad Pitt’s New ‘Outer Range’ Over Notorious Animal Trainers
For Immediate Release:
April 12, 2022
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
Despite hearing from PETA how animals suffer when used for film and TV, Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment, apparently worked with notorious animal trainers Kip and Chelsey Lewis of A to Z Film Animals—which has a history of multiple state law violations—for the new series Outer Range.
Video from a search warrant at the Lewises’ compound—which PETA sent to Plan B Entertainment—shows more than a dozen dogs being kept in kennels stacked on top of one another in a garage, animals crammed into closets, and, before her apparent death, an alligator being held in a small, filthy outdoor pit. PETA’s correspondence with Plan B notes that Kip Lewis pleaded no contest to multiple counts of importing animals illegally and that the Lewises apparently attempted to conceal animals from authorities by claiming to have sent them out of New Mexico—while actually hiding them at other properties around the state.
“Treating animals as Hollywood props is irresponsible enough, let alone working with trainers who were caught warehousing dogs in tiny cages, smuggling animals, and lying to police,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA urges viewers to skip this exploitative show, which provides seedy suppliers with a lifeline.”
PETA urges anyone who witnesses animals being used for film or television productions to report it at PETA.org/Report or contact PETA’s confidential whistleblower hotline at 323-210-2233.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
