The protester, representing animal rights group PETA, shouted: “Pharrell loves torturing animals.”
Pharrell Williams repeatedly told a protester: “God bless you”, as they interrupted a movie premiere he was speaking at.
The music producer and Louis Vuitton men’s creative director was doing a Q&A at a screening of the Lego-animated biopic Piece by Piece at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday.
A female-presenting person stormed up to the stage with a sign reading: “Pharrell: Stop Killing Animals for Fashion”, and was then heard yelling: “Stop torturing animals.”
The person was representing animal rights group PETA and Williams tried to speak to them by bending down and saying: “I know”, “you’re right”, and “I’m working on it.” A video of the protest was posted to PETA’s Instagram page.
Williams, who succeeded Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton in 2023, also said: “God bless you multiple times”, and asked the crowd in the theater to say it with him as the protester was escorted out by security.
After the person was removed from the cinema, Williams addressed the crowd and said that he and the fashion house’s parent company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, better known as LVMH, was trying to improve how it tries to source animal products, such as leather.
“You know, Rome wasn’t made in a day and sometimes when you had plans to change things and situations, you have to get in a position of power and of influence, where you can change people’s minds”, he told the audience and posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter.
