You Need to Hear What Kat Von D Thinks About Cecil The Lion

If you have been within 100 yards of a computer this week you have heard about the death of Cecil the Lion. After people learned the story of how a much beloved lion was lured out of a protected wildlife park and killed for sport by a dentist from Minnesota every form of social media exploded with outrage. One of the hottest of the many hot takes about the killing was put out there by celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D.

Writing on her Facebook Tuesday, Von D made waves by expressing her opinion that any non-vegetarian who is upset about the lion’s death is a hypocrite.

“It’s hard for me to empathize with those of you who are upset about the recent killing of an innocent lion, yet choose to eat animals,” Von D posted. “The only difference between Cecil the lion, and all the animals killed for meat: NONE. The only difference between Dr. Walter Palmer, and those who consciously choose to eat meat: NONE.”

Von D would go on to say that people need to seek out the truth about eating meat and make “the changes individually.” While there were almost 50,000 people who showed their support for Von D’s opinion there were a slew of comments from people who were upset by her words.

Many people see a huge difference between killing animals for sustenance and killing for sport. When Cecil was killed his flesh was not used to feed anyone; instead his head was taken as a trophy and his body left to rot. This very point was made by a commenter named Jennifer Marie on Von D’s Facebook page and it garnered over 24,000 likes.

With over 14,000 comments Von D has definitely sparked a conversation that people are passionate about. As we argue whether or not eating meat is comparable to what happened to Cecil there is one piece of common ground that we all share—luring a lion out of a wildlife preserve and shooting it for sport is a terrible thing to do.

If you just can’t get enough of Kat you’ll love this post.