Naked PETA protester disrupts Coach’s NYFW show as climate activists halt US Open in idiotic glue demonstration
Two of the hottest attractions in the Big Apple Thursday night – the US Open and the Coach Fashion Week show – were disrupted by idiotic displays of protest.
At Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, four climate activists created a scene when they began shouting from the stands during the highly anticipated women’s tennis semifinal match between American Coco Gauff and Czech Karolina Muchova around 8 p.m.
Play was halted for roughly 50 minutes as agitated fans — and even Gauff — demanded the unruly protesters, wearing matching “End Fossil Fuels” T-shirts, be removed from the arena.
During the stoppage in play, the crowd began chanting, “Kick them out! Kick them out!”
“Three of the four protesters were escorted out of the stadium without further incident,” the USTA said in a statement.
But one of them took his demonstration to the next level — by gluing his bare feet to the floor of the seating bowl.
“Due to the nature of this action, NYPD and medical personnel were needed in order to safely remove this individual from the stadium,” the USTA said.
The four protesters were taken into police custody.
“There’s no doubt in a 24,000-seat stadium people get ideas. We know environmental protestors use the platform (of events like this). Certainly security will be resuming – along with law enforcement – to see what we can do to prevent it in the future,” USTA chief executive Stacey Allaster told ESPN.
Around the same time as the US Open shenanigans, a naked animal rights activist stormed onto the catwalk at the Coach fashion show at the New York Public Library’s Main branch in Manhattan.
Wearing nothing but bodypaint with “Coach: Leather Kills” etched across her chest, the PETA demonstrator was closely followed on the stage by a second protester, who was clothed and carrying a sign displaying the same message.
Both women had made it nearly to the end of the runway when they were whisked away by security.
Sources told Page Six that Anna Wintour was in attendance during the antics.
The nude woman was made to look as if she had been skinned, with her “flesh,” “tendons” and “muscle” exposed, PETA said in a press release.
“Today’s conscientious consumers know that the future of fashion lies in innovative vegan materials, not in cows’ sliced-off skin,” the group’s Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a statement.
“PETA is shaking up Coach’s catwalk to drive home the message that leather belongs in the annals of history, not in designers’ current collections,” added Reiman.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Ian Mohr
