14 DAY TRIAL // Former “O.C” alum Mischa Barton has landed herself in very hot water after posing for photographer Tyler Shields with a piece of meat. The photos show the star biting on the raw meat and slapping it on her face, in what PETA deems a most disgusting attitude towards animal suffering.
The spread isn’t meant to promote anything in particular, with Shields writing on his official webpage that, at his readers’ requests, he simply reached out to Mischa and asked her to pose for him.
They ended up using a piece of raw meat for the shoot and, as expected, PETA is fuming mad.
“This raw meat stuff is getting old and may not only hurt and kill cows, it may hurt Mischa, because so much meat is infected with salmonella, E. coli, and campylobacter that licking it is like licking a toilet,” the group says in a statement cited by E! Online.
Plus, PETA adds, Mischa is a bit late to the raw meat as accessory game.
“In addition to this being completely unoriginal, it’s completely callous – flesh from a tortured animal isn’t a joke, isn’t camp, and isn’t cool. Meat is full of blood, is produced with violence, and causes great suffering,” PETA continues.
“So if that's the look they were going for, too bad: They could have taken a leaf out of the playbooks of Pamela Anderson and Alyssa Milano, two PETA pinups who have shown off their natural beauty in outfits made of lettuce leaves for PETA’s ‘Let Vegetarianism Grow on You’ campaign,” the group adds in the same statement.
As far as he’s concerned, Shields is somewhat affected by the criticism he’s getting for his latest work of art, but he’s nowhere near ready to apologize for it.
Judging from what he writes on Twitter, he didn’t do anything wrong. Even more, he actually did a good dead because leftover meat from the shoot allowed him to throw a barbecue party and invite all his friends, E! says.