The Winter Olympics are finally kicking up some chilly powder in Vancouver. This means fame-whoring opportunists like PETA and other assorted kooks get to enter stage right and claim their five minutes of fame, while threatening to assault the athletes. What?!
Cats and dogs and mongooses (mongeese?) should never be threatened with slaughter, but it’s open season on Olympic skaters — who, you have to admit, are sort of like puppies. (Oh my, a hunting joke! Someone call the ASPCA!)
American figure skater Johnny Weird Weir, the all-around “just a little bit odd” guy (Did I mention male figure skater?) fears for his life during the Winter Games.
According to ESPN:
U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir says he received threats from anti-fur activists that made him fear for his safety, causing him to scrub any plans to stay at a hotel while in Vancouver for the Olympics.
From Reuters:
“There was a lot of attention put on a tiny piece of fur,” said the 25-year-old, the 2008 world bronze medalist. “While I do understand anti-fur activists views about fur and the fur industry, they aren’t part of my life. One thing that is horrible is when somebody pushes a belief on you like a religion. I was definitely threatened and felt very threatened. People are nuts.
“I’m an easy person to pick on because I’m very open I like fur and I like things that come from dead animals. It’s easy put your cause against an athlete going to the Olympic Games, it’s good free publicity for these activists. I’m not a huge politician that gets these threats all the time. I mean I’m a figure skater. It’s not normal to receive a threat that really threatens your life. It’s a very scary thing.”
They didn’t just go after him. They’ve threatened “contacted” his costume designer as well. (Costume designers get no love unless something goes wrong.) The entire episode has forced Weir to literally share a hotel suite with a female American ice dancer, who just happens to be his teammate’s ex-girlfriend.
The plot thickens! Well … no, not really. I mean, come on. He’s a figure skater.
Anyway, just two weeks ago, Weir was all set to cave in and wear fake fur instead of the real thing:
Weir will replace the fox on his costume with faux fur after receiving “hate mail and death threats” from animal rights activists, agent Tara Modlin said Thursday. “He’s changing it because he needs to focus on skating,” she said. [...] “I do not want something as silly as my costume disrupting my second Olympic experience and my chance at a medal, a dream I have had since I was a kid,” Weir said in a statement …
“I hope these activists can understand that my decision to change my costume is in no way a victory for them, but a draw,” Weir said in his statement. “I am not changing in order to appease them, but to protect my integrity and the integrity of the Olympic Games as well as my fellow competitors.
“Just weeks away from hitting my starting position on the ice in Vancouver, I have technique and training to worry about and that trumps any costume and any threat I may receive.”
After this, animal rights groups signaled they would back off. But then Weir changed his mind and decided to wear his original costume. The fur came back, and apparently the claws have come back out.
Weir may not be Scott Hamilton, but he deserves a good night’s sleep during the Olympics. And if he makes it out of Vancouver alive, I hope he has a medal. If not gold, silver, or bronze, then how about mink?
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I saw this story early this morning somewhere, and it had a different picture. My first reaction? She’s kinda hot!
Now I just feel weird.
i like that quote of his saying that all the skaters wear cow hide skates, how’s that different that fur. i hope he wins gold just because of this.
Let Screech wear what he wants. Unless it’s that fugly Frankensuit up there. That’s gotta go, but not b/c of any animal-cruelty issue; it’s gotta go because it’s cruel to make the rest of us look at that.
wtf? first a scared guy dies, some other guy is upset about the clothes that other players are wearing, and now this guy. pussy olympics and WAAAAAAAAAY too much drama.
I thought about it earlier this week when I think TMZ focused on a Star wearing a fur coat and were saying that Peta would go after her. I thought how do they know it real? (It was but that’s because the star said so). I don’t know how well fake fur mimics real fur… but I guess not well at all since they always seem to be able to tell…
Ruining his’s lifetime goal(and career!) isn’t going to do a thing for their agenda. Hell we already know they don’t give a shit about the animals, it’s just a cause to get behind where they can get people who feel bad to send them money… like global warming climate change.
(Cruelty to animals is wrong, but using animal products is not, that is just a fact of life and kind of how we’ve survived for eons.)
I want to see what his outfit looked like…
sorry but I have no sympathy for the guy…..
He was asked to not wear real fur and was explained the reasons why and given videos to show how these animals are treated and die, he acknowledged that he was aware of the ‘dirtiness of the animal industry’, he said he didn’t care so he was well aware of his choices before consciously choosing to wear real fur knowing that he is supporting these horrific fur farms.
His callousness is attracting the same treatment he is getting………
Mfrag – you can definitely tell the difference between faux and real fur. The good faux fur might be passed off as the real deal in a photo, but it’s usually pretty obvious in person. (Real fur has a variation in color and length of hairs that faux fur can’t match)
Well, it’s ridiculous that he’s STILL getting more attention than the actual National and 2009 World Champion Evan Lysecek (I think I spelled that wrong), but there is no reason people should be threatening his life. It won’t bring the fox back. Humans are animals too, so how do the PETA-type creeps justify this behavior?
Weir’s a drama queen (watch his routines), but he’s not the devil. People aren’t going to start wearing fox fur because he has a couple inches on his costume, and picking on him just exposes the “activists” as the bullies they are. At least Weir is honest about his views, and acknowledges that others have the right to agree or disagree. If only others followed his example!
What’s next, is PETA gonna go after folks who “like meat”, too?
Oh, crap…
I’d bet next month’s house payment you wouldn’t say that if he were female, and being pelted with red paint on his way into an abortion clinic. See, if THOSE tactics are wrong, they’re wrong, period. He has the right to wear his tacky outfit, fur or no fur. Nobody else has the right to assault or threaten him for it. By your logic, I’m allowed to send you threats, throw things at you, whatever, if I disapprove of one of YOUR choices. You’re probably not on board with that, are you?
I didn’t think so.
“He was asked to not wear real fur and was explained the reasons why…”
So you gave him a real good finger wagging scolding then. Someone call Bruce Springsteen and tell him to get a new nickname because there’s a new boss in town named john.
I guess the Faux Fur industry can sit back and retire on all of the faux fur that was in the opening ceremonies. Including the faux feathers of the indigenous people. About every country that came out had some type of “fur” on them. Maybe PETA should go after the faux fur people, because it makes others want to buy real fur?
I’ll bet my neighbors children you wouldn’t say that if he was a kleptomaniacal paramecium…
Interesting how PETA is freaking out about him wearing fur, but don’t seem to care about everybody’s leather skates…
I look forward to the day when animals have the right to wear OUR skins.
What’s stopping you, tom? Go ahead and volunteer. As long as it’s your own skin.
tom,
“I look forward to the day when animals have the right to wear OUR skins.”
Then look no farther, because they already do. While laws may have some say in regards to how humans may interact with animals, there’s no laws that I can recall in regards to how animals can interact with humans. There’s nothing illegal about any non-human animals killing, skinning, tanning, and wearing human leather. Their right to do so may not be protected by the laws of man, but it’s certainly not infringed upon either. As far as I can tell though, not many animals would want to since human leather would quite likely be less thick than the skin of other animals and/or cumbersome to wear and/ or would detract from the usefulness of the fur of furrier animals. After all, without fur, our skin wouldn’t help animals keep warm very well, predators wouldn’t want to wear human leather because they generally don’t need the extra protection and it would slow them down, and more herbivorous animals already have thicker skins than we do anyway and if they really wanted still better protection, they’d do better by kicking crocodiles to death and wearing them. Or each other, but I’m assuming animals have their own laws against killing and wearing the skin of their own kind just like we do. Well… like most human cultures do.
PETA and all the other activists are just too much. They can indoctrinate people without resorting to violence.
I’m sorry, I know Weir’s a drama queen, but PETA’s way out of line here. Even if the guy’s a glutton for attention, it doesn’t mean he should have to feel threatened – and he clearly felt threatened, to the point he wouldn’t even sleep alone in Vancouver. That’s sad that one person, however much of a drama queen, is afraid of a group *just because they don’t like a few shreds of animal skin on his costume*. That’s not sticking up for your beliefs, PETA – that’s elitism, and tantamount to bigotry. But then again, that’s PETA’s policy, isn’t it? Oppress the humans, they’re not important. Dogs and cats deserve FAR more rights than human beings do.
Any way you slice it, that’s real, real cold.
And it seems to me PETA doesn’t really have any claws at all and doesn’t even have the motivation to actually FIGHT for animal rights. If they did, they’d be going after people that would actually put up a fight back, like bikers. How many Bikers have you seen splattered with red paint? No, it’s only the weak people like rich old ladies, Olympic athletes they can’t even lay their grimy Piggly-Wiggly dumping paws on, and little children who just want their Happy Meal. News Flash, PETA – Humans consume animal products; we’ve done so since we were Neanderthals. We evolved teeth for eating meat and enzymes to break down the proteins in meat. Biologically, we can’t even get most of the nutrients out of vegetables and the majority of it just goes through as roughage. Humans were meant to eat meat AND vegetables, not just one or the other. Yes, I believe fur is cruel and I would never wear fur myself if I could help it, but it’s also cruel to attack someone with threats just because they want to wear something you happen to dislike. Then again, all of you PETA members are insane anyway. I’m eagerly awaiting the day they make Extreme PETA supporting an official mental illness right along with homophobia and racism, because you are all some sick, sick little seakittens.