New Billboard Puts Forever 21 on Blast for Cruel Wool Sales

PETA Urges Beleaguered Company to Ditch Wool to Save Itself

For Immediate Release:
October 17, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

On the heels of reports that Forever 21 is filing for bankruptcy—and because the company refuses to stop selling wool, despite numerous PETA affiliates’ investigations revealing horrific cruelty to frightened lambs and sheep on farms around the world—PETA has posted a giant anti-wool billboard outside Forever 21’s headquarters.

Recent PETA video exposés recorded on sheep farms in Australia—the world’s top exporter of wool—show a farm manager carving swaths of flesh from lambs’ hindquarters as the animals thrash and cry and one worker bragging, “I hit one [sheep] so hard I knocked it out .… F**ked it under the jaw a bit too hard.” The videos are PETA’s 10^th and 11^th exposés of the global wool industry on four continents since 2014, all of which revealed abuse to sheep that the group has shared with Forever 21—but the company has continued selling wool.

“Forever 21 is hastening its own demise simply by refusing to give today’s kind consumers what they want, which is ethical, well-made clothing that no animal had to suffer and die for,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ad sends a pointed message that stylish vegan knits are here to stay—forever.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview that fosters violence toward other animals. The group has repeatedly shown that hitting sheep in the face with metal clippers, stomping on them, smashing their heads into the floor, and other abusive acts are common practice in the global wool industry.

The billboard is located at 3724 N. Mission Rd., just down the street from Forever 21’s headquarters.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.