Rod Stewart accused of insulting Paul McCartney by wearing seal skin coat

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Rod Stewart accused of 'insulting Paul McCartney' after he was pictured in a seal skin coat
BY HALINA WATTS
14 JULY 2015

Rod beams for the camera standing in the £1,795 jacket in a fur shop but his team say he is "upset" and had no intention of buying it


Insult: Animal rights protesters are furious Rod Stewart was pictured in seal skin coat

Rod Stewart has been slammed by anti-sealing protesters after he was pictured wearing a sealskin coat.

And campaigner, Paul Watson, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, also claimed the rocker's action was a direct insult to Paul ­McCartney who has publicly condemned seal hunting.

Rod beams for the camera standing in the £1,795 jacket in a fur shop.

But anti-sealing protesters are furious he would wear it all.

And red-faced Rod’s management said he regrets not checking what the jacket was made of.

A message on Rod’s Facebook account said the shop in Newfoundland, Canada, had loaned backing singers some red jumpers ahead of his gig in St John’s and a worker wanted to pose with the 70-year-old star wearing a jacket.


Condemned: Sir Paul McCartney has called for an end to seal hunting

It said Rod had no intention of buying it and is “upset to learn the shop has been using this image as an advertisement for an industry that he does not know much about and certainly does not support.”

Most commercial seal products are banned in Europe and the US over the cruelty of clubbing seals.

Anti-sealing protester Paul Watson, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, blasted the rock star.

He said: “You see Rod Stewart simply does not give a damn. He’s in the Ted Nugent [pro-hunting campaigner], Kid Rock school of rock musicians who have hearts of stone and blood on their hands.”

He said seal hunts were just slaughters of helpless seals in nurseries on ice floes.


campaign: Daily Mirror seal skin fury

Mr Watson also claimed Stewart’s action was a direct insult to Paul ­McCartney who has publicly condemned seal hunting.

But Darren Halloran, of the shop Always in Vogue, said killing baby seals has not been allowed since 1987 and the sealing industry is humane – using every part of the product, from the skin to the meat to the oil to the organs.

The Daily Mirror has been linked to the campaign against the mass culling of seals since 1968 when our iconic front page of a cub being clubbed to death became a poster image for campaigners.

There have been no organised culls in Britain since 1978 but fish farmers still insist they need to control them.