(NewsNation) — Comedian Pete Davidson is in the doghouse with animal rights group PETA. After Davidson bought a puppy from a pet store, PETA hounded him for not adopting from a shelter.
“It’s tragic that Pete didn’t seek out a borough-born mutt from a city animal shelter, because a scrappy New Yorker with charm, personality, and unconventional handsomeness could have been his perfect match,” Daphna Nachminovitch, Senior VP of Cruelty Investigations at PETA, told TMZ Monday.
Davidson reportedly responded with a vulgar voicemail for Daphna including expletives and said he’s “severely allergic” to most dogs.
During an interview with NewsNation host Leland Vittert, PETA director Ashley Byrne called the message “obscene” and “juvenile.”
“His message was obscene and juvenile. I think maybe he realizes that he did do something wrong,” Byrne told Vittert. “If he had done his research, he would know that there’s no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog and puppies in pet stores, almost without exception, come from puppy mills.”
Byrne claims the store Davidson purchased the puppy from is “notorious for selling sick, dying dogs from puppy mills.”
“Pete has a huge platform and anything he does is going to make the news and influence people. This is no exception. When this hit the press, we felt that it was very important to nicely encourage him to adopt next time and encourage his fans to do the same because there are millions of dogs right now waiting for homes in shelters,” Byrne said.
Davidson said he bought the puppy for his mother, whose dog recently died. In a statement, he said the voicemail contained a “poor choice of words” but he’s “not sorry” for standing up for himself and his family.