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LADY GAGA IN HER MEAT APPAREL

"I never thought I'd be asking Cher to hold my meat purse."

That was Lady Gaga's unusual opening statement when she stepped onstage at MTV's Video Music Awards Sunday to receive her Video of the Year award from pop legend Cher.

After arriving at the ceremony in a dress from the late designer Alexander McQueen's final collection and then changing into a weighty, architectural gown and spiky crown by Giorgio Armani, Gaga turned heads (and we'd have to imagine noses) in her final outfit, a Franc Fernandez dress (plus boots, hat, and purse) cut together from what appeared to be slabs of raw meat. The outfit echoed the controversial meat bikini she recently wore for the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan.

After the show, in an interview , Gaga tried to explain that the dress was a political statement. Discussing how she'd been escorted to the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles by members of the U.S. military who had been discharged from the service due to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, Lady Gaga said: "It is a devastation to me that I know my fans who are gay , feel like they have governmental oppression on them. That's actually why I wore the meat tonight."

DeGeneres, a famous vegan who often speaks out on behalf of animal rights, pounced on the topic while keeping her distance from the dress. "It's certainly no disrespect to anyone that's vegan or vegetarian," Gaga responded. "As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the earth. It has many interpretations, but for me this evening, it's 'If we don't stand up for what we believe in, we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're gonna have as much rights as the meat on our bones.'"

Gesturing to the Japanese Vogue cover, she snarled and added, "And I am not a piece of meat."

DeGeneres didn't seem to buy that fairly speciously reasoned explanation, and instead offered Lady Gaga an outfit that didn't need to be butchered: a vegetable bikini and skirt made of corn husks. "It's fabulous! Oh it's kale!" Gaga said. "Well, it's the best of both worlds, you and me, Ellen."

The meat dress's designer, Franc Fernandez, has yet to issue any statements about his unusual gown -- or confirm whether it was truly made of actual meat -- but he retweeted Cher's compliment: "The way it was cut & fitted to her body was AMAZING ! Meat purse was genius ! As Art piece it was astonishing! No moral Judgement!" Fernandez, who has also dressed Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera, made the diamond headpiece Gaga wore in the video for "Bad Romance," which picked up seven of the singer's eight VMA wins last night.

PETA, unsurprisingly, was less of a fan. The animal-rights advocacy organization quickly issued a statement condemning Gaga for her offbeat sartorial choice. "Meat is the decomposing flesh of a tormented animal who didn't want to die, and after a few hours under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh it is and likely be crawling in maggots -- not too attractive, really."

Gaga is just lucky no dogs -- or Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, for that matter -- were in the house that night.