The first portrait of King Charles III was vandalized with a sticker featuring Wallace from the Wallace and Gromit series of movies, according to activists.
Animal rights activist group Animal Rising published a press release claiming credit for the protest, in which a sticker of the famous British cheese-loving clay inventor was pasted over the monarch’s face.
“Around 12:00 today (11/6/24,) two supporters of Animal Rising entered the Philip Mould gallery and proceeded to affix posters onto the painting of King Charles III,” the group said. “One poster overlaid the King’s face with Wallace, from the popular Aardman stop-motion, whilst another was a speech bubble reading ‘No Cheese Gromit. Look At All This Cruelty On RSPCA Farms!’”
The protest was in response to a report by the activist group that found cruelty on 45 randomly selected farms run by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to which the King is a royal patron.
“The report details an alleged 280 legal breaches and 94 breaches of DEFRA regulations, with Animal Rising calling on the RSPCA to drop the scheme,” the group said. “On one Somerset farm investigators found a dead and decomposing pig in a walkway, whilst others observed a shed at an RSPCA Assured egg-laying hen farm in Kent with approximately 64,000 chickens in dire conditions.”
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Wallace was most likely chosen because, at Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee in 2012, Charles’s wife Camilla told a group of children that “Wallace and Gromit are his favorite people in the world,” according to the BBC.
Animal Rising describes itself as a “social movement to create a new relationship with all beings and give us a chance for a safe ecological future. The group primarily calls for the transition to a secure and sustainable plant-based food system, alongside a mass rewilding programme.”