Mary J Blige Releases Another Fur-Filled Fiasco 
  Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Mary J. Blige makes me saaaaad.  She's a beautiful woman; one look at the photo above (at an Elton John AIDS fundraiser earlier this year) and it's easy to see that Mary J. can look just as sophisticated without the excessive fur trim.  But nearly every time Blige releases a video, she's dressed to the nine's in animal carcasses:  and her new music video, "Staying Down"--which was just released--is no different.

"Be Without You":  Walking around on a fur rug.  "Enough Cryin'":  Leopard print oversized fur coat.  "Runaway Love":  Fur Vest.  "Just Fine":  Fur coat.  And now in the latest, "Staying Down," Mary is among panning camera shots of glaciers, ice, and ocean, while sporting a variety of tacky fur numbers.  Ironically (or maybe justly?), the scenes shot in the video are eerily similar to the recent coverage by Nigel Barker and the HSUS of seals being slaughtered for their fur in and around the Arctic the past two months.

Mary has been wearing fur for years, but now that she's touring with Jay-Z - who wears animal duds regularly himself, and whose (fiancee? wife?) Beyonce was undeterred by an undercover PETA ambush - Blige seems to be even more fur-empowered.

"Those PETA people don't want to mess with me," Blige said recently.  "They don't want to throw paint on my coat because it's not just going to be throwing paint.  It's going to be Mary in the news the next day, you know what I mean?"

"What gives them the right to destroy someone's coat because their opinion is that you shouldn't wear animals?  Understand what I'm saying?"

Mary is a very talented singer with beautiful music, and there's no doubt she's earned the right to be a diva in the R&B genre.  But her diva-tude has gone too far when she not only wears fur to the extremes, but actually publicly taunts an animal rights organization that has saved so many loving pets and wild animals.  First, the insinuation that PETA encourages people to throw paint on others is false (PETA's fur campaigns regularly remind the public that PETA does not encourage any criminal activity).  Secondly:  she can call this an "opinion," but if she had enough of a heart to take some of that dough she spends on a 1,000 pairs of shoes and actually book a flight to visit a fur farm, she'd be singing a different tune.  Understand what I'm saying?

UGH!  She needs to check herself.  Using her influence as an artist to promote wearing the skins of Mother Earth's creatures - for no reason other than an outdated status symbol - is nothing to be proud of.  Animals need their fur to survive:  she doesn't, or God would have made her a lot hairier.  It looks better on the animals, honey.


Take a stand about promoting cruelty for fashion.

Comments > >