Weir's Agent Caught in a Lie

January 30, 2010

Weir Not Off the Hook

The New York Times

excerpt from: Triple Axels Secure Title and Confidence

By JULIET MACUR

Johnny Weir’s costume at the United States figure skating championships featured white tufts of fox fur on his left shoulder.Elaine Thompson/Associated Press Johnny Weir’s costume at the United States figure skating championships featured white tufts of fox fur on his left shoulder.

Friends of Animals, the international animal rights group based in Connecticut, is not happy with the figure skater Johnny Weir — again. And this time it’s not because he wears fur.

With about two weeks left before the Vancouver Games, Weir switched his long-program costume from one with genuine white fox fur to one with faux fox fur. In a statement Thursday, Weir said that “pressures and threats from a certain animal rights group” had prompted him to make the change.

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Weir says he'll wear faux, not fox fur, after receiving 'threats'

January 28, 2010

The Canadian Press

By Nancy Armour (CP)

Animal rights groups can leave Johnny Weir alone now.

Weir will replace the fox on his costume with faux fur after receiving “hate mail and death threats” from animal rights activists, agent Tara Modlin said Thursday.

“He’s changing it because he needs to focus on skating,” she said.

Friends of Animals posted an open letter to Weir after he added white fox fur to the left shoulder of his free skate costume for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. On Tuesday, the animal advocacy group called his costume designer, Stephanie Handler, and faxed a press release about its open letter to her business.

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Animal Rights Group Unhappy With Weir Wearing Fur

January 26, 2010

The NY Times
By NANCY ARMOUR AP National Writer
Filed at 9:59 p.m. ET

Johnny Weir has set fur flying again.

Friends of Animals has posted an open letter to the figure skater, criticizing him for having fox on one of his costumes and asking him to stop wearing fur. The animal advocacy group also contacted his costume designer, Stephanie Handler, on Tuesday.

”I totally get the dirtiness of the fur industry and how terrible it is to animals. But it’s not something that’s the No. 1 priority in my life,” Weir said Tuesday night. ”There are humans dying everyday. There are thousands if not millions of homeless people in New York City. Look at what just happened in Haiti.

”I tend to focus my energy, if there is a cause, on humans. While that may be callous and bad of me, it’s my choice.”

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FoA Challenges Figure Skater Johnny Weir to Stop Wearing Fur

January 22, 2010

Friends of Animals sent an open letter to Olympic hopeful Johnny Weir.

The American skater is on a quest for the gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. During an interview with the New York Times, Weir boasted smugly that he “looked pretty” in his outfit, which visibly showed fur obtained from a fox on his sleeves.

In the letter, FoA President Priscilla Feral bluntly criticized Weir’s love-affair with fur, stating, “Please consider that there’s nothing pretty about the fox that suffered and died to trim your outfit. The beautiful fox was likely anally electrocuted, or may have had its head bashed in, only to serve as decoration for someone’s performance.”

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