Animals Aren’t Fabric: PETA Disrupts Pharrell Williams’ Party

Moments ago, two PETA supporters interrupted a star-studded Paris Olympics kick-off party to call out host and Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director Pharrell Williams for his disgraceful use of wild-animal skins and fur in his collections.

The animal defenders held signs reading, “Pharrell: Stop Killing Animals for Fashion” in front of a packed crowd of attendees, including Serena Williams, Charlize Theron, LeBron James, Omar Sy, and Rosalía, before being hauled out by security. See what happened next:

BREAKING👀 PETA activists confront @Pharrell Williams at his Paris party, demanding an end to @LouisVuitton’s use of fur and wild animal skins🐍
The world is watching, Pharrell. It’s time to change! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/1IdWaV7dVm

— PETA UK (@PETAUK) July 25, 2024

The action is part of PETA’s campaign to urge Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH, a sponsor of the Olympic Games, to ban fur and wild-animal skins.

Why Pharrell?

While Pharrell lives it up at celeb-filled soirées, the vulnerable animals sentenced to die for his ‘fashion’ choices languish in pain and filth on factory farms and at slaughterhouses, where they’ll be hacked to bits or skinned alive.

When challenged over his use of fur, Pharrell dismissively said, “It’s a design thing … it is what it is.” His indifference to animal exploitation condemns snakes, ostriches, crocodiles, and minks to a painful death at an abattoir. Pharrell is callously ignoring the following cruelty:

Workers at a supplier to Louis Vuitton’s parent company bash pythons with steel hammers before suspending them by the jaw and pumping them full of water. They then slit the snakes open with razorblades. A reptile expert who watched the footage confirmed it’s probable that the pythons were “conscious across all stages” of the attempted slaughter.
Ostriches used for Louis Vuitton’s textured purses suffer in barren feedlots before they’re forced into giant kill boxes, flipped upside down, and electrically stunned, after which their throats are slit in full view of their terrified flockmates.
On crocodile farms that supplied skin to Louis Vuitton’s parent company, the animals were packed together in concrete pits – some of which were narrower than the length of their body.
Most of the world’s fur comes from fur factory farms, where animals are confined to cramped wire cages that are often caked with hair, faeces, and rotting food. Many of the animals slowly go insane from the stress of intensive confinement before being gassed, electrocuted, or killed in other crude ways.

Compassion Is In, Cruelty Is Out

We are calling on Pharrell to stop being complicit in cruelty and help pull Louis Vuitton out of the dark ages by shunning the antiquated use of animal skins.

Louis Vuitton and Pharrell need to join the ever growing list of major designers and fashion houses – including Mulberry, Victoria Beckham, Chanel, Burberry, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vivienne Westwood – that have banned using the skin of reptiles or other wildlife, and nearly all top luxury fashion houses that have banned the use of fur.