Simon Cowell speaks out against cruel dog festival in China

56-year-old talent mogul Simon Cowell has called for help on Twitter to support the Humane Society International’s campaign to ban a questionable festival held in China.

The event features a “dog cuisine” in which officials feed up to 15,000 dogs to those who attend the festival. On Twitter, he wrote, “Yulin dog meat festival is sickeningly cruel so join me and support @HSIGlobal to #StopYulin.”

He also asked people for donations and join to fight against animal cruelty on the organization’s website.

“It’s so brutal, it makes me sick thinking about it. The cruelty, pain and terror these animals experience is disgusting and there are no words to describe how upset this makes me feel. The images and footage of the gruesome reality for these helpless animals – many of them still wearing their pet collars – are outrageous and inexcusable. We have to do something. Please donate to help HSI fight the dog meat trade and care for these rescued animals. These animals can’t help themselves – it’s up to us to do something, now.”

Cowell owns two Yorkshire terriers named Squiddly and Diddly. He often says they are like his children. Along with Cowell, Ricky Gervais asked his followers on social media to join the fight.

“Please help stop the #YulinDogMeatFestival … Will smug idiots stop asking why it’s worse to eat dogs than cows. In principle it isn’t. But in this case they torture the dogs first … They believe torturing the dog makes the meat tastier…”