Last week, 14-time Playboy cover star Pamela Anderson sent a letter to the Playboy Club London asking it to remove foie gras from its menu – and in response, the venue confirmed that the dish had already been removed and pledged never to serve it again.
“I’m part of Playboy’s family – and, I like to think, and as Hugh Hefner always told me, its DNA. I adore the brand’s playfulness and luxury but was confused – and disappointed – to learn that the Playboy Club London is serving foie gras,” wrote Anderson in her letter to the club.
“There’s nothing sexy about foie gras – which means ‘fatty liver.’ In fact, it’s downright vile,” she continued. “Selling this abhorrent pâté is not in keeping with the Playboy brand I know and love, and I hope you’ll remove it from the menu right away.”
To produce foie gras, ducks and geese are force-fed several times a day until their livers become diseased and swell to up to 10 times their normal size. By the end of their lives, many birds have trouble breathing because their enlarged livers compress their lungs. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way” – has released exposés of foie gras farms that show sick, dead, and dying birds, some of whom had holes in their necks from being impaled by the feeding pipes. Foie gras production is so inhumane that it would be illegal in the UK and more than a dozen other countries.
