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Jorja Fox on Jess' T-Shirt Jest and the Circus Mess

Fri., Jul. 11, 2008 1:30 PM PDT by Marc Malkin

Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage.com

Pamela Anderson isn't the only one crackin' jokes about Jessica Simpson's "Real Girls Eat Meat" T-shirt.

"But I think that [T-shirt] phrase can be interpreted in many different ways," quipped CSI star and longtime animal-rights activist Jorja Fox. "We should ask Jessica what meat she was referring to, because there are several out there."

But is Fox truly upset over the shirt?

"I think Jessica Simpson has every right to her opinion, but I'm not offended by it at all, because it was done in jest," Fox assured me earlier today. (FYI, Simpson recently told TMZ her favorite meat is sausage.)

Much more important to Fox right now is her fight against traveling circuses. Fox helped launch Animal Defenders International's Science on Suffering Project this morning in Austin, Texas, to spread the word about allegations of circus-animal abuse.

"Traveling circuses had their time, and it was great," Fox explained. "But now it's 2008, and we know the science, and we know animal behavior. It's time to put those circuses behind us."