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17 Vegan Celebrities On Why They Can’t Get Enough Of A Lifestyle Free From Animal Produce
From Beyoncé to Jenna Dewan, here are the A-listers living without animal-products.
Whether it’s for ethical, health-related, moral, environmental or simply taste, there are many reasons for someone to choose to become vegan.
According to the Vegan Society, 'veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practicable — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment'.
In 2020 an employment tribunal in the UK ruled for the first time that ethical veganism is a 'philosophical belief' and is protected by law.
When it comes to food, several global fast food brands such as Leon, KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King now sell vegan food items, while UK bakery chain Greggs is now as famous for its pasties as it is for its scrumptious vegan sausage rolls. Several cities in the UK have now begun holding vegan food festivals, including Salford and Liverpool. According to Vegan Society research conducted in 2018, there are around 600,000 vegans in Great Britain, which is estimated to be up from 150,000 two years prior.
Among those who consume a vegan diet – which prohibits the consumption of animal products such as meat, fish, dairy and eggs – are celebrities including Beyoncé, Jenna Dewan and Lizzo.
Here are the vegan celebrities you need to know:
Sadie Sink
The Stranger Things star has been a committed vegan for several years after starring opposite fellow vegan Woody Harrelson in their film The Glass Castle.
‘I realised what goes on in the egg industry, and the dairy industry, so then I was like, “That’s it! Going vegan!” and I just kind of went cold turkey basically,’ the actor previously told ELLE UK.
Sink is also keen to ensure she wears ethical clothing.
She told us it's important to ‘pay attention to what you’re wearing’ because it’s not always obvious if an item is vegan. ‘It’s crazy because they’ll find ways to sneak in animal products or animal-based clothing items into your clothes, so I guess just kind of like do your research,’ she noted. ‘I had to look at lists of what materials contain animal-based materials inside of the clothing items, but yeah I guess if you just watch out for that, and again, there’s a lot of vegan options out there, like more than you think.’
Nathalie Emmanuel
After suffering from migraines in her youth, Emmanuel cut dairy out of her diet and began looked at holistic nutrition and 'the relationship between [certain] foods and disease'.
After trying veganism for a week she noticed she was sleeping better and friends began complimenting her about how glowing she looked.
'“Then I did it for two weeks and felt even more energised,' she told Women's Health. 'And then I was like, “That’s it; I’m going for a month!"'
During visit to her mother's home in England she ate some nonvegan dishes which didn't sit well with her stomach 'She made all the delicious things I ate growing up, and I thought, I’m not feeling so good, actually. Then I said, "Oh, guys…I think I’m vegan."'
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish became a vegan several years ago after living as a vegetarian.
‘Becoming vegan wasn't like a huge deal for me because meat was never a thing in my life. It wasn't like I missed meat — it wasn't like I had something to miss,’ she said in a YouTube series in 2018.
In May 2021 she told Vogue: ‘I am vegan. I've been vegan for, damn, seven years.’ On educating herself about the meat industry, she noted: ‘Once you know that kind of thing and you see it, it's really hard to go back.
‘And now, even though I have lots of friends that eat dairy and meat and I don't ever want to tell anybody what to do, I just can't go on in my life knowing what's going on in the animal world and like, not doing anything about it.’
Zac Efron
The actor has attributed his vegan lifestyle to helping improve his physical and mental wellbeing.
‘I’ve been experimenting with eating purely vegan,’ he told Teen Vogue in 2018. ‘That’s completely changed the way that my body works, and the way that I metabolise food, the way it turns into energy, the way that I sleep. It’s been brilliant. It’s been great for my exercise, and great for my routine.’
Joaquin Phoenix
Like his partner Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix has long been a vegan, but has said he will let their son River make up his mind when it comes to eating meat.
‘Certainly, I would hope that [he is vegan], but I’m not going to impose my belief on my child. I don’t think that’s right,’ he recently told the Sunday Times. ‘I’m not going to indoctrinate him with the idea that McDonald’s have a Happy Meal because there’s nothing f*cking happy about that meal,’ he added, noting that he’s equally not going to sugarcoat where food comes from. ‘I’m not going to tell him that it’s OK to read books about all the wonderful little farm animals, and they say “oink oink oink” and “moo moo moo”, and not tell him that that’s what a hamburger is. So I’m not going to perpetuate the lie, but I’m also not going to force him to be vegan. I’ll support him. That’s my plan.’
Lizzo
The 32-year-old singer announced in June 2020 that she had turned vegan, sharing numerous videos of her meals on TikTok.
‘As a new vegan, I'm enjoying exploring flavours from plants and plant-based proteins!’ she captioned a video of one of her dishes. ‘Every journey is personal and deserves to be celebrated.’
Sharing videos of her typical breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, she added: ‘Disclaimer, this isn't every day, but this was a pretty average one.’
According to the ‘Juicy’ singer, she now begins her day with a green breakfast smoothie made with coconut water, kale or spinach and some frozen fruit. Her lunches consist of a salad made with kale, red cabbage, broccoli and avocado, while her dinner was a truffle-chickpea-mushroom ball with quinoa and leftover salad.
‘I used to eat a lot of hot Cheetos, but that wasn't good for my acid-reflux,’ she added. ‘These are Cheeto-alternative I love that's vegan and I dip them in hummus. Badda-boom badda-snack!’
For dessert, she typically makes a peanut butter jelly smoothie made with oat milk and vanilla protein powder. ‘I feel very lit and full,’ she noted.
As for her hangover cure, instead of eating cheesy eggs like she used to, she said that she makes a vegan breakfast scramble using Just Egg alternative, topped with carne asada bean and a corn mixture with spinach and vegan cheese.
Benedict Cumberbatch
In 2018 the actor opened up about turning vegan and his love of his plant-based lifestyle.
In an interview with Time Out London, the British star said that while he didn’t eat egg whites to get in shape for his Avengers role, he eats ‘a plant-based diet’. In another interview he told YouTuber Sophia Grace that he likes Nando’s, but ‘only if they’ve got vegan options’
Miley Cyrus
Cyrus committed to veganism in 2013 and in December 2018, when the singer and her ex husband Liam Hemsworth said ‘I do’ in a small ceremony in Cyrus’ hometown of Nashville, Tennessee it was reported by US Magazine that the vegan couple’s wedding reception featured a vegan selection of foods including vegan truffle mac and cheese, vegan fried chicken, and vegan biscuits with apple butter.
Veganism had been an important cause for the 27-year-old during her career. Over the years, she has collaborated with Converse to produce ethical apparel, attended the 2018 Met Gala with Stella McCartney to promote cruelty-free fashion, gained the support from animal rights organisation PETA (which awarded her the ‘Best Voice 4 Animals award in 2017’ ) and wore a wedding dress by anti-fur activist Vivienne Westwood on her wedding day.
In an interview with Vanity Fair in March 2019, the ‘Mother’s Daughter’ singer said: ‘Choosing to live as a sustainable vegan activist means wearing more vintage (less waste; loving pieces for longer), playing with the newest eco-materials and technology, and making custom vegan pieces with some of my favourite designers.’
However, during a discussion on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in September 2020, Cyrus revealed she is now a pescatarian and quit veganism for health reasons.
Ariana Grande
In 2013, Grande told her fans on Twitter that she had been eating organically since she was a child and rarely ate meat, but was committing herself to becoming ‘100% vegan’.
PETA thanked the ‘7 Rings’ singer for her decision and she went on to say that her heart felt ‘very happy’ as a result of becoming a vegan.
In an interview with the Mirror a year later, the singer opened up about why she became a vegan.
‘I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding,’ she told the newspaper. ‘But I am a firm believer in eating a full plant-based, whole food diet that can expand your life length and make you an all-around happier person. It is tricky dining out, but I just stick to what I know — veggies, fruit and salad — then when I get home I'll have something else.’
Jenna Dewan
Ostensibly a vegan since the age of 10, the Step Up star told Women’s Health magazine last year that she made the decision to switch to a fully vegan lifestyle after watching a documentary on abattoirs and slaughterhouses.
‘It just stuck,’ she told the publication of the images she saw in the programme. ‘I feel good about it morally and physically.’
While she said that her ex-husband Channing Tatum tried to be vegan for six months, he doesn’t like vegetables ‘which makes it tough’.
Beyoncé
Beyoncé and Jay-Z have been linked to the vegan movement for several years, with the singer sharing a video detailing her vegan lifestyle prior to her 2018 Coachella performance.
In July 2019, the mother-of-three posted a clip to her YouTube channel titled ’22 Days Nutrition’ which documented her eating and exercise regime ahead of her ground-breaking performance following the birth of her twins, Rumi and Sir, in June 2017.
According to Beyoncé’s website, the nutrition plan – devise by her personal trainer Marco Borges - is ‘based on the principle of creating healthier habits by moving towards a plant-based lifestyle’.
Borges explained in the video that the singer and her team of dancers went ‘100 per cent plant-based’ ahead of the performance.
Months before, the Lemonade star offered her US-based fans the chance to win free tickets to see her and Jay-Z ‘for life’ if they committed to eating more vegan meals in association with the Greenprint Project.
Thandie Newton
The former vegetarian told Associated Press in 2018 that she became a vegan after working alongside Woody Harrelson on Solo: A Star Wars Story.
‘I think it’s good to have a vegan in the mix, a vegan in position of power,’ she told the news outlet. ‘I have been vegan since working with Woody.'
Opening up about how long she had been a vegan, she added: ‘The last four months, it’s been four months. It hasn’t done anything to my brain, I’m absolutely fine.’
Venus Williams
Having reached 16 Grand Slam finals over the years, you can be sure that the tennis champion cares as much about her diet as she does her serve when it comes to achieving top performances on the tennis court.
The star has been vegan for several years after being diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, according to Vegan Life magazine, which is an autoimmune disease that causes excessive fatigue.
In an interview with Health magazine in 2017, the star said: ‘Once I started I fell in love with the concept of fuelling your body in the best way possible. Not only does it help me on the court, but I feel like I’m doing the right thing for me.’
However, two years later the athlete told Insider magazine that she had to introduce some cooked foods into her former raw vegan diet.
‘That way of eating was just hard to maintain for long periods of time,’ Williams told the news outlet. 'Sometimes you just need something more substantial — some rice, some potatoes — after a workout.'
Natalie Portman
The Black Swan actress has been a vegan from the age of nine and has gone onto dispel common misconceptions about the lifestyle over the years.
While her husband Benjamin Millepied isn’t a vegan, the star told PopSugar that ‘everyone gets to decide for themselves’ in her household whether they want to eat vegan food or not. Portman explained: ‘I like to hang out with people who eat whatever they want to eat because I think that everyone should make decisions for themselves.’
In 2018, the actress released the film Eating Animals which lifts the lid on the food production and factory-farming industries. Months later, the actress reportedly told 16,000 students at WE Day California: ‘Only after I became active in women’s issues did I realise that my veganism was related to those very issues.
‘Dairy and eggs don’t just come from cows and chickens, they come from female cows and female chickens. We’re exploiting female bodies and abusing the magic of female animals to create eggs and milk.’
Kate Mara
In May 2018, the House of Cards actress told Shape magazine that she had been a vegan for five years after reading a book called The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder.
‘I found it hard to give up cheese at first because I love it so much,’ she said. ‘But I haven't missed meat at all.’
Having suffered from a ‘pretty sensitive stomach’ for several years, the actress said that when she cut animal products out of her diet, she ‘felt so much better’.
Rooney Mara
Like her famous sister, the actress has been a vegan for several years and in 2018 launched a vegan fashion line with her friend Sara Schloat called Hiraeth.
‘I realized there aren’t many [faux leather] options available for someone like me who is interested in design and wants high-quality pieces,’ the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star told Vogue magazine in 2018.
‘In fast fashion, you can find faux leather boots that are really cheap, but while it’s cruelty-free in the animal sense, I didn’t necessarily know where those things were made, or if they were cruel toward humans,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t want to compromise on either thing, and I wanted pieces that were made to last. So it really came out of my own need.’
Jessica Chastain
The Help star has been a vegan since 2007 and regularly uses her platform to speak openly about her lifestyle choice.
In an interview with W Magazine in 2017, the actress said she was initially a pescatarian but decided to become a vegan because she was ‘really low on energy’.
‘I found myself going to veganism because a friend of mine had a two-week vegan food delivery program she wasn’t going to use so I used it, and immediately I just had more energy than I’ve ever had in my life…’ she told the publication. ‘I said okay, “I’m going to just listen to my body now. Being vegan was not anything I ever wanted to be. I just really was listening to what my body was telling me.’
A year later, she told the same publication that she was concerned her veganism would make others annoyed, especially her in-laws.
‘In the beginning, I would say I'm vegan,’ she explained. ‘Which is like the worst thing. I don't eat 10 meals and I'm vegan. I would say, 'I'm sorry I can't eat that,' and [my mother-in-law] would say, “No problem, we have fish”.’
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
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