Birkin Bag-Burning Tyler Shields to Donate $100,000 to Family in Need

USMagazine, Wednesday, May 30, 2012, 9:32am (PDT)

An artist need not defend his art, but in the case of Tyler Shields' Birkin bag-burning antics, an exception has been made.

Since Monday's episode of E!'s Mrs. Eastwood & Company aired, the famed photographer has found himself in hot water as fans called his destruction of the $100,000 Hermes tote (in which he hit with a chainsaw and set on fire) "narcissistic" and "fraudulent," thus making him "a horrible human being."

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Shields is backing up his work and now has made a pledge that should appease those who are quick to remind him of the starving population across the globe.

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"The Birkin photos are for sale. If somebody were to buy…all right, let's do this. If somebody wants to buy one of the Birkin photos, I will donate $100,000 -- not to a charity -- but to a family. I will give one family in need $100,000 cash," he says in a Tuesday interview with artinfo.com. "I would select somebody who…my father had a stroke when I was 15, and it became very difficult financially for the family, so I think I would do that. I think I would find a family that someone had a stroke or some type of ailment. I think that if somebody had done that for us when that happened to me, it would have been like a miracle. So, I'll find somebody who that just happened to and I will help them out."

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No stranger to pushing the limits, the L.A.-based photographer is the artist behind Lindsay Lohan's prostitute shoot, Heather Morris' brutal black eye and setting up Barbie dolls committing X-rated shenanigans as Emma Roberts looks on.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Birkin Bag-Burning Tyler Shields to Donate $100,000 to Family in Need