Halloween’s Here! PETA’s New ‘Ant & Dec’ Costumes Condemn Crimes Against Animals on ‘I’m a Celebrity’
Halloween is a chance to compete for the creepiest costume – something that shocks, disgusts, and scares. But if you’re clever, you can wear one that does all that while also advocating for animals.
PETA’s new “Ant and Dec” costumes call out the duo’s long-running cruelty towards frogs, crocodiles, spiders, rats, insects, and other animals who are killed, eaten, and tormented for I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’s eating trials.
The limited-edition costume is now available here.
A Decade of Animal Abuse
Halloween costumes are fun, but I’m a Celebrity is far from it for animals.
Now in its 25th year, the ITV offering leaves behind a bloody trail of animal terror and deaths.
From trapping frogs and other animals in inescapable chambers with screaming, flailing contestants who hit and squash them, to making contestants eat animals’ genitals, organs, and other body parts, Ant and Dec have cheered on animal abuse in myriad ways.
Every season for a quarter of a century, bugs, arachnids, reptiles, small mammals and more are confined, shaken in tiny jars, thrown and dropped, eaten alive, and tormented.
Is it worth taking an animal’s one precious life for tired, tacky, and cruel stunts?
Animals Are People, Not Props
Whether they’re horses being ridden to death at tourist traps in Egypt, bulls being slaughtered at bullfights, or spiders and reptiles being thrown about on a game show, every animal is someone, and none deserve to be used and abused so that humans can enjoy a laugh or a thrill.
Some spiders dance for love, and lizards use air bubbles to create “scuba helmets” to breathe underwater. Frogs can be doting parents[ER4.1], and some glide between trees, while insects routinely work together, using strategy to ensure everyone survives.
Regardless of size, every animal is an individual, and, unlike the celebrities who are paid hefty sums to take part, the animals used on I’m a Celebrity aren’t there by choice.
Viewer Complaints, Global Condemnation
PETA has long condemned I’m a Celebrity’s cruelty to animals. In 2009, ITV faced prosecution in Australia after contestant Gino D’Acampo killed a rat and cooked the animal for a meal during filming.
The following year, ITV pleaded guilty to two charges of cruelty to animals and paid a fine. And in 2018, footage from the programme showed a crocodile used in a Bushtucker Trial with the animal’s mouth taped shut.
Thousands of viewers have complained to Ofcom, and PETA has called on Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (as well as Australian host Robert Irwin) to step down rather than remain complicit in the cruelty.
After decades of suffering, it’s time for ITV to call “cut” on this cruelty.
Help Get Animals Out of There!
Dressing up as Ant and Dec is one way to draw attention to the hosts’ complicity in animal abuse, but animals need you to take it to the top.
Call on ITV Studios to stop grabbing ratings via cruelty to animals, now!
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