Singer Dawn bares it all in anti-leather PETA billboard high over Highland Park

A anti-leather PETA billboard that shows someone ripping skin from the buttocks of a nude R&B artist is perched high above Highland Park. 

The billboard, featuring singer Dawn, proclaims, “LEATHER IS A RIP-OFF" and, "That leather jacket or upholstery was someone’s skin.”

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The animal advocacy group says that the image was rejected in Atlanta and Los Angeles for being too graphic before it went up Oct. 11 along the Davison Freeway near Woodward Avenue. It will be there for a month, PETA spokeswoman Christina Sewell said. 

"At slaughterhouses, cows killed for leather may be skinned and dismembered while still conscious — after they endure castration, tail-docking, and dehorning without painkillers," reads an Oct. 16 story on PETA's website about the ad. 

"A recent PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor that has supplied retailers like H&M, Coach, J.Crew, Nine West, Adidas, and countless others also showed workers branding calves on the face and electroshocking and beating cows and bulls."

The Highland Park billboard is the only one nationwide currently hosting the ad. 

"I think for people who say it’s a little too jarring or graphic, we urge them to consider the lives of the millions of cows who are slaughtered for their skin every year" amid horrible conditions, Sewell said. 

She said in order to bring the issue to the public's attention, "We need to be able to put it out there in way that's colorful and thought-provoking, and get celebrities involved." 

Stephen Sothmann, president of the U.S. Hide, Skin and Leather Association, issued this statement in response to the billboard:

“While the billboard is meant to shock consumers, PETA’s underlying message is just plain incorrect," he said in an e-mail. "Animal hides and skins are byproducts of the meat industry that have been recycled and turned into leather after the animals have been properly processed under the supervision of government inspectors.

"Despite what PETA wants you to believe, the animals are unconscious when the hide or skin is removed.” 

Several other celebrities have "bared it all to help PETA save animals," according to PETA's website, including Alicia Silverstone, Jhené Aiko, Eva Mendes, P!nk, Taraji P. Henson and Penélope Cruz.

Contact staff writer Ann Zaniewski at 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AnnZaniewski.