R&B Superstar’s ‘Graphic’ PETA Ad Lands in Detroit

D∆WN’s Skin Is ‘Ripped Off’ for Anti-Leather Fall Fashion Campaign

For Immediate Release:
October 16, 2017

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Just in time for the fall shopping season, R&B superstar and former Danity Kane singer D∆WN (Dawn Richard) bares it all for a new PETA billboard in Detroit that shows the skin being torn off her body next to the words “Leather Is a Rip-Off. That Leather Jacket or Upholstery Was Someone’s Skin.”

The billboard—which was rejected in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and D∆WN’s hometown of New Orleans for being too “graphic”—just went up on the M-8/Davison Freeway, near the I-75 exit.

In an exclusive video interview with PETA, D∆WN reveals the inspiration for the gruesome ad: “[A]nimals don’t have the ability to say how much pain they’re in or tell you not to rip their skin off.”

The advertising companies that rejected the ad told PETA, “It is the graphic photo! If you had a different image it may work,” and “It [is] due to the skin being ripped off the woman.” PETA notes that, at slaughterhouses, cows killed for leather may be skinned and dismembered while they’re still conscious—after they endure castration, tail-docking, and dehorning, without any painkillers. A recent PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor—which has supplied retailers like H&M, Coach, J.Crew, Nine West, Kenneth Cole, and countless others—showed that workers brand calves on the face, beat cows and bulls, and shock them with electric prods.

D∆WN is part of a growing list of celebrities—including Alicia Silverstone, Jhené Aiko, Eva Mendes, P!nk, Taraji P. Henson, and Penélope Cruz—who have bared it all to help PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”) promote kinder wardrobe choices.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.