Weir Comes Out ... Against Anti-Fur Activists
With one week to go before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, irrepressible men’s figure skating star Johnny Weir talks about the threats that led him to rip tufts of fur from his long-program costume.
If you’ve followed the often bumpy yet consistently glamorous figure skating career of Johnny Weir, you didn’t bat an eye when he took to the rink at the U.S. National Championships last month in a costume replete with crystals, jagged red scars on the back symbolizing a ripped-out pair of angel’s wings, and decadent fur trim. He epitomizes why fans love skating and detractors love to hate it. “If you're a figure skater, you should wear a figure skating costume,” Weir once told me in an interview for the Los Angeles Times. “You can't just wear all black and skate to Beethoven. There needs to be a story, and you're the storyteller.”
Yet animal rights activists have long abhorred the wardrobe tales Weir has spun — namely off-ice, as the 25-year-old Russophile and star of the Sundance Channel's Be Good Johnny Weir worships all things fur. But his bronze medal-winning performance at nationals with white fox gracing his bare shoulders was the last straw for Friends of Animals, which wrote an open letter on January 20 condemning Weir’s Anna Wintour-esque fur proclivities. Weir subsequently released a statement of his own on IceNetwork.com, announcing his decision to replace the fur accents on his costume with faux fur. In typical staccato fashion, he added a few barbs, however: "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.”
Unapologetic and forever coy about his sexuality, Weir spoke recently with The Advocate about the threats, the possibility of scrapping his Fallen Angel costume altogether, and his desire to skate a transcendent performance without someone throwing blood on the ice.
The Advocate: Johnny, tell us about the latest drama in your life.
Johnny Weir: At U.S. Nationals, I had new costume with a tuft of white fox fur. I thought it was beautiful, and I thought it portrayed perfectly the fallen angel idea I had for my long program. A few days later, I started hearing rumblings that Friends of Animals released a letter that they were pissed, and that they were challenging me not to wear fur anymore. Of course I said that I didn’t accept that challenge. They were using me to get their name out there — it’s Olympics season, and it was a perfect time to latch on to someone.
Then they started sending faxes to people in my circle, my costume designer, my agent. I don’t know if they were all from Friends of Animals — there were a lot of explicit [faxes and e-mails] sent. Someone found out my home number, probably from a friend of a friend of a friend, and started harassing me as well.
What were the messages?
Things like "We hope you die, we’re going to piss on your grave, we’d like you to be killed the same way as the fox for your costume." Lots of things about my death. So I wanted to release an open statement. I didn’t want everyone in the world thinking I went hunting daily for foxes. I’ll change the costume, but it doesn’t change my opinion about wearing fur.
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