We already knew that Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of The Pretenders (remember “Back on the Chain Gang?) was a hard-core animal rights activist. But is she hard-core enough to suggest that other activists commit murder?
Hynde’s latest comments seem to fall right in line with her existing activist résumé. According to Yahoo’s Launch music website, Hynde told Tower Records’ Pulse magazine that big corporations “are destroying the planet.” Her solution:
Hynde’s quote on the back cover of Ingrid Newkirk’s Free the Animals! describes the terrorist Animal Liberation Front as “the world’s newest freedom fighters.” And Hynde has shown up on the front lines of the animal rights movement, getting herself arrested at a 2000 PETA protest event. She was read her rights after taking a knife to leather merchandise on display in a New York City GAP store.
But Hynde first established her lunatic bona fides in 1989, when she attended an all-star gala to release a Greenpeace benefit album. Asked what ordinary people could do to help animals, Hynde told the audience that people “should petrol-bomb Mcdonald’s.”
Two days later, a golden-arches franchise in London was firebombed. We hope Hynde’s latest call-to-arms is less effective than her last.