By Gil Kaufman
Lady Gaga on the October 2010 cover of Vogue Hommes Japan
Photo: Terry Richardson/ Conde Nast
Right about now, one can only imagine how ripe that meat suit Lady Gaga donned for a cover shoot by Terry Richardson for Vogue Hommes Japan is getting. But PETA thought it stunk from the very beginning.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals slammed Gaga for her latest sartorial head turner, in which she modeled a skimpy bikini made out of steaks, with another rib eye propped on her blond tresses for good measure.
"No matter how beautifully it is presented, flesh from a tortured animal is flesh from a tortured animal," PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement. "Meat represents bloody violence and suffering, so if that's the look they were going for, they achieved it."
Newkirk told the New York Daily News that "Lady Gaga's job is to do outlandish things, and this certainly qualifies as outlandish because meat is something you want to avoid putting on or in your body."
The criticism is a bit of a turn-about in the Gaga/PETA relationship. The organization praised Gaga — who is nominated for a record 13 MTV VMAs — in December for setting a faux polar bear coat on fire in her "Bad Romance" video and again in January for adding vegan hot dogs to her tour rider.
And they loved when Gaga showed up in Kermit the Frog outfit to a German television interview last year, explaining that it was her commentary on not wearing fur.
The Vogue issue is the same one in which Gaga poses as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone, a brown-haired mechanic from Sicily, for an alternate cover. In the accompanying interview, Calderone claims to be Gaga's good buddy and occasional friend-with-benefits.
"I met her at a shoot [photographer] Nick Knight was doing," Calderone told the mag. "She's f---in' beautiful, and funny, and interesting. I was a little nervous for Nick to start shooting. She said, 'Don't be, baby, you were born this way.' I took her out after. The rest is private."
What do you think of Lady Gaga's meat bikini? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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