Lady Gaga has sparked outrage among animal rights activists with her latest controversial magazine cover, as the pop star appears naked and wearing nothing but raw, red meat on the front of Vogue Hommes Japan.
The photo — taken by Terry Richardson for the magazine’s September issue — prompted a strong reaction by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which said in a statement, “No matter how beautifully it is presented, flesh from a tortured animal is flesh from a tortured animal. Meat represents bloody violence and suffering, so if that’s the look they were going for — they achieved it.”
“Oh, 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,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk added in an interview with the Daily News.
The carnivorous cover is Gaga’s second one for Vogue Hommes Japan. For the first, the singer dressed as her male alter ego Jo Calderone, described herself as a mechanic by trade, and cheekily described an encounter with the real Lady Gaga: “She’s fuckin beautiful, and funny, and interesting. I was a little nervous for [photographer Nick Knight] to start shooting. She said, ‘Don’t be baby, you were born this way.’ I took her out after. The rest is private.”
