The fur has been flying in a flap over Johnny Weir’s costume, and it appears to have flown right off his shoulder.
Weir says he has come to a “draw” with animal activists and will replace the fox on his costume with faux fur after receiving “hate mail and death threats.”
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 earlier this month. Since then, other anti-fur activists have voiced their criticism — some to the point where Weir was concerned that someone might disrupt his Olympic performance, his agent, Tara Modlin, told The Associated Press.
“I do not want something as silly as my costume disrupting my second Olympic experience and my chance at a medal, a dream I have had since I was a kid,” Weir said in a statement, first published by . “I hope these activists can understand that my decision to change my costume is in no way a victory for them, but a draw. I am not changing in order to appease them, but to protect my integrity and the integrity of the Olympic Games, as well as my fellow competitors.”
