UPDATED: Gaga Explains VMA Meat Dress

Lady Gaga first raised eyebrows with her meat bikini on the cover of Japanese Vogue and Sunday at The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, she caused an even bigger commotion when she wore her meat dress – now the innovative artist is finally explaining her designer beef.

“What is the purpose of the meat?” Ellen DeGeneres asked the singer during her taping for the Season 8 premiere of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” which took place on Sunday night after the VMAs, but which will air on Monday.

“Well, it is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian. As you know, I am the most judgment free human being on the earth,” Gaga explained. “However, it has many interpretations but for me this evening if we don’t stand up for what we believe in and if we don’t fight for our rights pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones. And, I am not a piece of meat.”

Ellen presented the singer with an alternative to her meat ensemble, a bikini and skirt made out of vegetables.

On Monday, Access confirmed that Gaga’s meat dress was actual real meat.

Earlier on Sunday, Gaga walked the VMA white carpet with four former servicemen and women who had been discharged from the military for being gay under the government’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

“I’m here for a very, very important cause tonight,” Gaga told MTV News’ Sway. “These are all my friends and they are with SLDN.org, which is an organization that was founded in 1993 under the reaction to the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policies. Their stories are very inspiring and there’s so much we can do right now.”

Adding, “No one person is more valuable than another person.”

On Monday, PETA’s President Ingrid Newkirk’s released a statement about the singer’s dress.

“In her line of business, Lady Gaga has a hard time being ‘over the top,’ and wearing a dress made from cuts of dead cows is offensive enough to bring comment, but someone should whisper in her ear that there are more people upset by butchery than impressed by it—and that means a lot of young people will not be buying her records if she keeps it up. On the other hand, maybe it was fake, and she’ll talk about that later,” Newkirk said in a statement to Access. “Meat is the decomposing flesh of an abused animal who didn’t want to die, and after time spent under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh that it is and likely be crawling in maggots—not too attractive, really. If Lady Gaga continues to wear meat, the perfect accessory would be a PETA vegetarian/vegan starter kit. A lot of people will take one look and want one. It’s sending lots of people to PETA.org to download our kit, so I guess we should be glad.”