Animal rights protesters from PETA disrupted the premiere of Pharrell Williams’s animated documentary Piece by Piece at the London Film Festival.
Before the screening, they unveiled a banner with the message “Pharrell: Stop Supporting Killing Animals for Fashion” inside the Royal Festival Hall.
According to Variety, one demonstrator told the Louis Vuitton menswear creative director, “Shame on you, Pharrell. Animals are skinned alive and tortured.”
The Happy singer, who is battling laryngitis, responded, “God bless you. The change we want to see won’t happen overnight.”
Security guards removed the protesters from the event at the request of the BFI representative.
“We feel it was managed well and any attempt to remove them earlier would have exacerbated the problem,” the rep added.
This isn’t Pharrell Williams’s first encounter with a PETA campaigner on the Piece by Piece press tour. During its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, one rushed the stage and yelled, “Pharrell’s collection is made from their blood! Pharrell stop torturing animals!”
Addressing the allegations at the time, he insisted to the audience that his team “are actually working on that”.
“Rome wasn’t made in a day. And sometimes, when you have plans to change things and situations, you have to get in a situation of power and of influence where you can change people’s minds and help progression,” Pharrell Williams continued.
Piece by Piece, which tells his life story in the form of LEGO, served as the closing night gala of the London Film Festival on Sunday.
