Will ‘Tiger King’ Make Celebs Swear Off Animal Selfies?
PETA Calls On Dozens of Stars Who’ve Posed With Captive Wildlife to Speak Out Against Sham ‘Sanctuaries’
For Immediate Release:
April 3, 2020
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
As everyone watches Netflix’s Tiger King—which exposes the abusive and deadly underworld of exotic-animal exhibitors—PETA has sent letters calling on Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Cara Delevingne, The Weeknd, Jason Momoa, Hugh Jackman, and a slew of other celebrities who’ve posed with captive animals never to do so again.
“Anyone who has seen Tiger King knows that animals suffer when they’re taken from their mothers as babies and exploited as props,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet, who appears in the docuseries. “PETA is asking these celebrities to show their fans that they know better now and will never support these cruel facilities again.”
Tiger King features notorious animal exhibitors like Joseph Maldonado-Passage (aka “Joe Exotic”), Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, Tim Stark, Jeff Lowe, and others who breed animals for profit, separate babies from their mothers, and deprive them of everything that’s natural and important to them. Many have criminal rap sheets and lengthy histories of federal Animal Welfare Act violations—but they still operate.
PETA has been working for years to shut down facilities like theirs. The group rescued nearly 50 animals from Maldonado-Passage’s custody, all of whom are currently at reputable sanctuaries, and filed two lawsuits against facilities that acquired big-cat cubs from him. PETA just prevailed in one of these lawsuits, and the last six tigers held at a roadside zoo called Dade City’s Wild Things arrived at an accredited sanctuary this week.
Other celebrities PETA has reached out to include Logan Paul, Floyd Mayweather, Odell Beckham Jr., Kate Walsh, Hayden Panettiere, Paris Hilton, and Farrah Abraham.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist worldview that other animals are disposable. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
