Photo: Manfred Werner / Wikimedia Commons

Supermodel and Britain’s Next Top Model judge Elle Macpherson has come under fire from animal rights activists recently for comments that suggest that she uses banned animal products. In a Twitter interview, Macpherson said with reference to rhino horn that ‘It works for me’ and without knowing what tone she was using, it’s difficult to know whether it was the tongue-in-cheek comment she says it was, or something more serious.

Chinese Medicine

In the interview, Macpherson was asked about her use of Chinese medicine. The interviewer asked, in what can only be presumed to be a joke, what powdered rhino horn tastes like, to which Macpherson replied, ‘A little bit like crushed bone and fungus in a capsule. Does the job though.’ It’s a somewhat bizarre description if she was serious: have many people tasted crushed bone and fungus?

‘Banter’?

Since being criticised for what many conservation activists saw as a clear-cut statement that she uses banned animal products, Macpherson has apologised for what she calls ‘distress or offence that her banter with an interviewer might have caused.’ Her story seems plausible: for one thing, it seems unlikely that her interviewer would suggest seriously that she was involved in an illegal activity, and even less likely that she would casually admit to something that could land her in serious legal trouble.

For the record

When it comes to caring about endangered species, Macpherson’s record is squeaky clean: she once boycotted a restaurant for serving bluefin tuna – a fish as endangered as the white rhino. Many reports about the interview have suggested that Macpherson used the rhino horn product as an alternative to traditional beauty products, but that’s probably just because of her line of work: the illegal remedy is in fact used to treat ailments such as arthritis.

Tags: beauty products, Twitter