Falcons TE Gonzalez gets down to bare truth in PETA ad
Wearing a fur coat or stripping naked: Tony Gonzalez would choose the latter.
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| Despite appearances, Tony Gonzalez and his wife wore something for the photo shoot. |
The ad's tagline reads, "We'd rather go naked than wear fur."
Gonzalez has used his name and image in products before. But pose nude?
"Obviously, it's something I've never done," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said he became aware of animal rights three years ago. He decided to do the PETA ad after watching videos and photos online on how fur factories treat animals used for their products.
"The pictures I saw are pretty gruesome, pretty cruel," Gonzalez said. "If it's done the right way, then maybe. But if it's done the way I saw then it's inhumane."
Added Gonzalez, "When I saw that tape I said, 'This is something I feel strongly about. This shouldn't be done.' It's not right. And I had never done this before. So this is something me and my wife had to think about."
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan said he was able to see the ad before its release.
"It's for a good cause and Tony's passionate about that," Ryan said. "So I think it's a good thing."
Some players in the Atlanta locker room have yet to see the ad, such as cornerback Tye Hill.
"I'm sure he'll get some ripping for [posing nude] once everyone knows about it," Hill said. "But he has a lot of years on a lot of guys so I don't know how much ripping he'll get."
One player who might be in Gonzalez's ear is cornerback Chris Houston, who said he wouldn't mind looking at Gonzalez's wife in the photo.
"I'm OK and I don't want to ruin it for him, but we did have clothes on," Gonzalez said. "My wife is a pretty woman. She's like a flower."
Gonzalez's stance on animal rights translates to his eating habits as well. This past offseason, Gonzalez wrote The All-Pro Diet, a book on how to eat healthy. Three years ago during the NFL season, Gonzalez briefly became a vegan. But that lasted only a month when he started losing too much weight from it.
"As a pro football player it's not the best ideal diet you want to do," he said.
Gonzalez said he eats meat, but from "clean sources" such as "grass-fed cows and "free range chicken." He said he's fine with the meat industry as long as "you do it humanely."
The Falcons ran into some problems with PETA a couple of years ago when former quarterback Michael Vick was busted for running a dog fighting ring in Virginia. But Gonzalez said his and his wife's decision to pose for the ad had nothing to do with what happened in the past.
"We started this process before I even thought about becoming a Falcon," Gonzalez said. "So that had nothing to do with it around here."
