Earlier this week Mischa Barton made headlines for the first time in a loooong while, when she posed with a big old pile of raw meat in a shoot for photographer Tyler Shields. Sounds like classy comeback material, right?

PETA certainly didn’t think so. The animal rights groups issued a statement on TooFab lambasting Shields and Barton for participating in the shoot. “This raw meat stuff is getting old,” they said. “And [it] not only hurts and kills cows, it may hurt Mischa, because so much meat is infected with salmonella, E. coli, and campylobacter that licking it is like licking a toilet.”

PETA continued with a few suggestions for Shields: “They could have taken a leaf out of the playbooks of Pamela Anderson and Alyssa Milano, two PETA pinups who have shown off their natural beauty in outfits made of lettuce leaves.”

Shields fired back, saying “I did not kill the cow, I just bought the meat. If they feel like I should be using lettuce instead of meat, I will see if I can work that into something.” He added, “I don’t attack them for being non-meat eaters so I hope they can respect my choice as a human to eat it.” We just hope he has a salad-themed shoot with another C-list actress in the works.

As for how the shoot came about with Mischa, it’s even more bizarre than we expected. According to Shields’ website, he was hounded for two weeks with emails from Barton’s “fan club in Brazil” demanding he do a shoot with her. Apparently these Brazilian devotees were also feverishly emailing Barton’s “best friend” about a potential shoot. Eventually Shields and Barton got in touch and the rest is, well, beef-strewn history.

Although we think the “Brazilian fan club” might have just one member…and her name may be Mischa.