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.
"Aggression is not necessarily the way to do it and being in my position, when I have conversations on behalf of organizations like that, unbeknownst to them they come out here and do themselves a disservice."
"That's okay. When that change comes, everybody in this room, will remember that I told you we're actually working on that," Williams added.
He concluded by saying: "And if she would have just asked me, I would have told her, but instead she wanted to repeat herself."
Newsweek contacted Williams' representatives, LVMH, Louis Vuitton and PETA by email for comment.
PETA issued a statement after the incident accusing Williams of hypocrisy and said it would stop doing these kind of protests when he follows through with his promises.
"We would be happy to stop disrupting Pharrell's appearances but despite a lot of lip service, he's yet to ditch fur and exotic skins," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said. "Pharrell can decide in a heartbeat, today, to use his power for good and stop being complicit in cruelty—it's quite easy to be kind."
PETA Asia conducted an investigation into Indonesian slaughterhouses used by LVMH, which owns many other major designer brands such as Christian Dior Couture, Celine, Loewe, Kenzo, Givenchy, Fendi, Emilio Pucci, Marc Jacobs and Berluti.
The investigation alleged the slaughterhouses used cruel and inhumane practices, such as inflating snakes with water, bashing them with hammers, and cutting them with razors while likely still conscious.
PETA claimed to have found that "workers in the fashion industry hack at crocodiles' necks and shove metal rods down their spines, chop off conscious lizards' heads with machetes, and electrically stun ostriches before slitting their throats in full view of their terrified flock mates."
"Animals raised and killed for fur are confined to tiny, filthy cages before they're electrocuted, bludgeoned, gassed, or even skinned alive," it said in its statement.
In April, LVMH released its 2023 social and environmental responsibility report, which described some of its actions in improving animal welfare.
One example was the establishment of the One Welfare and Sustainability Center, which was set up in September 2023 in partnership with Ohio State University (OSU) and is a project to "develop a comprehensive training program for animal health specialists and to raise global awareness about the importance of the health, well-being and sustainability of animal populations in production systems."
Elsewhere in the report, it said LVMH is "helping to shift mindsets" and organized an animal welfare panel during the LIFE 360 Summit, a conference it hosted in December at the UNESCO headquarters.
It also reported that its "Maisons" (fashion houses) "are taking steps to achieve the target of 100% of strategic raw materials (fur, leather, exotic leather, wool) being covered by the highest animal welfare standards by 2026."
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