In recent years, the vegan diet in particular has been trending. Celebrities such as Beyonce and Bill Clinton attest to the health benefits and the life-changing effects of this eating style. Here are 50 vegan celebrities you should know about.
Vegan celebrities
Zac Efron
The actor started eating a vegan back in 2018 and feels healthier than ever. He told Teen Vogue, “[Veganism] completely changed the way that my body works, and the way that I metabolize 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.”
Gisele Bündchen
This supermodel is a big believer in a vegan diet and says her kids also eat a plant-based diet for the most part. In an interview with People, Bündchen said, “We all love it. It’s not only good for our health and makes us feel good, but it is also good for the planet."
Jessica Chastain
Want more energy and clear skin? As a vegan for over 10 years, Chastain swears by the vegan diet and its health benefits. “Being vegan was not anything I ever wanted to be. I just really was listening to what my body was telling me,” she told W Magazine.
Ariana Grande
When asked why she went vegan, this pop star told the Daily Mirror, “I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding. 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-round 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.”
Bill Clinton
After an emergency heart surgery in 2010, this former president knew it was time to start adopting healthier habits. So, what made him decide to go vegan? “I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn’t want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So, I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival,” he said in an interview with AARP.
Venus Williams
After being diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, Williams decided to adopt vegan eating habits. “I started for health reasons,” Venus told Health. “I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and I wanted to maintain my performance on the court. Once I started, I fell in love with the concept of fueling 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.”
Beyonce
In 2013, this singer tried a 22-day vegan challenge with her husband, Jay-Z. And in 2018, Beyonce announced on Instagram that she was going vegan and invited her fans to join her. “44 days until Coachella!! Vegan Time!! Click the link in my bio to join me!” she wrote.
Liam Hemsworth
Being surrounded by friends who went vegan inspired Hemsworth to do the same. In an interview with Men’s Journal, he said, “I have a lot of friends who are vegan. Woody Harrelson was actually one of the original reasons I became vegan, because he’s been vegan for, I don’t know, 30 years or something. So, with the facts I was gathering, and then just how I was physically feeling, I felt like I had to do something different.”
Jenna Dewan
After watching a documentary about slaughterhouses at age 10, Dewan gave up animal products entirely. In an interview with Women’s Health, she said, “The next day I said, ‘I’m never eating meat again.’ It just stuck. I feel good about it morally and physically.”
Portia de Rossi
After moving to a farm surrounded by animals with wife Ellen DeGeneres, the actress decided to go vegan. She said in Oprah Magazine, “I always thought going vegan would be difficult, but I genuinely don’t crave meat or cheese. And I feel happier, like I’m contributing to making the world a less violent place.”
Natalie Portman
After following a vegetarian diet for years, Natalie switched to a vegan diet after reading the book Eating Animals. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said, “When I read the book, that was what made me become a vegan. I think until then, I had thought, Oh, with eggs and dairy, you’re not [harming] animals. It’s just their natural byproducts. But when I started learning about the conditions and the environmental effect of all these animals and the impact on humans of having large groups of sick animals together, it really made me want to change immediately.”
Michelle Pfeiffer
This actress decided to go vegan to stay healthy and slow down the physical signs of aging. In an interview with Urbanette, she said, “Eating a vegan diet—it’s just so much healthier—and you avoid a lot of toxins that could age your skin and your body. I really noticed a difference in my skin not too long after switching to fully vegan.”
Miley Cirus
Cirus told Vanity Fair that she is a fan of vegan fashion and considers herself “a sustainable vegan activist.” The singer’s IG also promotes veganism and her love and respect for animals.
Olivia Wilde
Although it’s difficult at times, being vegan has improved Wilde’s overall well-being. “[Being vegan] is not always easy and accessible, but it’s a way of life and makes me as a person feel really good and physically look better,” Wilde told HuffPost.
Benedict Cumberbatch
In 2018, Cumberbatch was named PETA’s “Most Beautiful Vegan,” so it’s no secret this actor is in top shape. Ever wonder what this actor’s secret is? During his promotion of the Avengers movie, he credits his vegan diet as being responsible for keeping him trim.
Kate Mara
A book inspired this actress to become a vegan. In an interview with Shape, Mara said, “I decided to go vegan after reading a book called The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder. It’s about how our bodies are not meant to digest animal products and what we should be eating instead. It made a lot of sense to me. I’ve always had a pretty sensitive stomach, but when I cut animal products out of my diet, I felt so much better.”
Billie Eilish
While this singer was raised vegetarian, she made the switch to vegan back in 2018. In her Tumblr post, she wrote, “I went vegan like four years ago. There were a lot of reasons. I love animals and I just think there’s no point in creating something out of an animal when the animal is already there. Leave animals alone. Also, I’m lactose intolerant and dairy is horrible for your skin and my skin is VERY aware of that.”
James Cameron
In an interview with PETA, Cameron shared the reason why he turned to veganism. “It’s not a requirement to eat animals, we just choose to do it, so it becomes a moral choice and one that is having a huge impact on the planet, using up resources and destroying the biosphere.” To prove his commitment to the vegan lifestyle, he founded the vegan elementary school, MUSE.
Madelaine Petsch
Known for her role as Cheryl Blossom on Riverdale, this actress told People that veganism has been a major part of her life for years. “I’ve been plant-based my whole life. Being vegan keeps my body fueled and running smoothly.”
Lizzo
The singer is new to the world of veganism, and announced her decision to go vegan on TikTok in 2020. “As a new vegan, I’m enjoying exploring flavors from plants & plant-based proteins!” showing examples of what she eats in a day. “Every journey is personal & deserves to be celebrated.”
Jason Mraz
Mraz followed a vegan diet to support a friend in his band. In an interview with Vegetarian Times, he said, “A guy in my band found out that he had type 2 diabetes and felt that the only way he could help himself was to go raw. I did it as a partner for him so it would be a little easier.”
Madonna
Following an extremely strict macrobiotic diet, it’s no wonder this singer is in such incredible shape. Madonna doesn’t eat wheat, eggs, meats or dairy, and enjoys the benefits of sea vegetables, The Cut reports.
Ellie Goulding
While the singer has been vegetarian for years, she made the switch to veganism after learning more about where meat comes from. “Once I fully understood where meat came from … I found that concept quite hard to live with. If you don’t need meat to survive, I don’t see why you have to have it. Also it makes you feel tired, it makes you feel lethargic, and your body finds it hard to process so much meat all the time,” Goulding said in an interview with The Cut.
Moby
In a Rolling Stone op-ed titled “Why I’m Vegan,” the musician shares his journey to veganism. He wrote, “I thought, I don’t want to contribute to animal suffering. But the cows and chickens in commercial dairy and egg farms are pretty miserable, so why am I still eating milk and eggs? So in 1987 I gave up all animal products and became a vegan. Simply so that I could eat and live in accordance with my beliefs that animals have their own lives, that they’re entitled to their own lives, and that contributing to animal suffering is something that I don’t want to be a part of.”
Alicia Silverstone
At first, Silverstone became vegan out of her respect for animals and has since been pleasantly surprised by how the diet has changed her life. In an interview with Food & Wine, she said, “I ditched my asthma inhaler, stopped my weekly allergy shots, lost weight, and had a new glow from my skin and hair … this way of eating transformed me.”
Bryan Adams
This musician told PETA what made him want to become a vegan.” Being sympathetic to animal rights is just something that came very naturally to me. Perhaps because I used to have dogs growing up, and you know they became part of the family. And it never occurred to me growing up … I never put the whole thing of animal cruelty and that together as a youngster. But the moment I began to understand what was going on with the treatment of animals, it led me more and more in the way of the path I am [on] now, which is a complete vegan.”
Joaquin Phoenix
Starting at age 3, this actor has been a vegetarian for most of his life. In an interview with VegNews, he explained that veganism is a way of life, from eating habits to fashion choices. “Veganism is a lifestyle—it means not using animals in any way. I think it is important to learn about our shoes, purses, and where we get leather from, and just educate ourselves as much as possible.”
Ellen Pompeo
The Grey’s actress decided to adopt a vegan diet after a doctor’s visit in 2018 In an interview with People, she said, “I just went for my yearly appointment a couple of weeks ago and [Dr. Kristi Funk] told me about her book. Since then my whole family has gone completely vegan. She told me she turned her three kids completely vegan and I came home from my appointment with her where she basically gave me [the information] … and I said, ‘That’s it, we’re all vegan.’”
Woody Harrelson
Harrelson chose to embrace a vegan diet in his twenties. He told Metro UK, “I used to eat burgers and steak, but I would just feel knocked out afterward. I had to give them up. Dairy was first, though.”
Emily Deschanel
This “Bones” actress was inspired to go vegan at a young age. She told Garden of Life, “Everything started when I decided to become vegan 22 years ago after visiting [the Farm Sanctuary] in New York. It was life-changing to see animals growing up in a healthy environment. It’s very eye-opening to go there because they also do a great job of educating about the dangers of factory farms and where our food comes from.”
Elliot Page
This well-known vegan advocate was named one of the sexiest vegetarian celebrities by PETA in 2014. Page tweeted, “Why are vegans made fun of while the inhumane factory farming process regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited for profit?”
Russell Brand
This comedian and actor has been vegetarian since he was a teenager, and became vegan in 2019, which he announced on Instagram. During his Recovery Live Tour 2020, he said, “I was nagged into veganism by society … I was vegetarian from when I was a little kid, 14, because of The Smiths and because of like ‘oh, they do what in factory farms?’ You know, like, it was too brutal.”
Mayim Bialik
At the age of 19 after her first child was born, the actress decided to become a vegetarian, and later made the switch to veganism. She opened up to Vegetarian Times, “A taste aversion stopped my eating meat, then my deep love and respect for animals started informing more and more of my decisions. I had an innate sense of wanting to be vegan, but I needed more information. The change was gradual, which let me think through every step. I was still eating dairy when my first son was born; he couldn’t tolerate my breast milk, and I realized I had a dairy allergy. So, it kept evolving. I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and that did it.”
Taraji P. Henson
In an interview with InStyle, she spoke about becoming a vegan. “It took a doctor in Macon, Georgia, to say, ‘If you don’t change what you’re doing, you’re going to get stomach cancer.’ … So I switched everything up out of necessity. I want to live. Thank God, because I feel so much better.”
Rooney Mara
In 2011, the actress decided to try a vegan diet. She told Covetuer, “I’ve been a vegetarian on and off since I was nine… On and off only because my parents told me I was a picky eater and wouldn’t always let me. Then, about seven years ago, someone sent me this horrible undercover video of a pig, which led me to another horrible video and another horrible video. I went down the YouTube rabbit hole.”
Stevie Wonder
In an interview, the singer told AOL that he went vegan for environmental reasons. “I’m motivating people to do something about how we’re living on this planet. We have to be about making our planet greener, the urban areas more sustainable for the children. We can’t just talk about it, we have to be about it.”
Evanna Lynch
Lynch stopped eating animal products at a young age. She told Vegan Food and Living, “I had gone vegetarian when I was 11 because I was viscerally repelled by the idea of eating animal flesh and there was no way to avoid the fact that someone had been killed for that piece of meat. But as far as veganism went […] it wasn’t until I read Eating Animals in 2013 that I understood how inconsistent my vegetarian lifestyle was with my beliefs and that’s when I began making the transition to veganism. I would say it took me until 2015 to become fully vegan.”
Leona Lewis
The singer told Metro about her decision to embrace veganism. “I would go to farms lot with my mum when I was younger to look at the animals—chickens and pigs—and I began to realize that I was eating those same farm animals I loved to go to feed and to be around all the time. I remember saying to my mum I just would not eat it anymore. I stopped when I was about 6 or 7. I went to and fro with being vegetarian throughout my teens until eventually, I was like, ’no, I’m not going to eat it.’ Lewis even had a completely vegan wedding!
Travis Barker
Barker decided to try veganism after surviving a plane crash. In an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, he said, “I was vegetarian since I was 13 and then after my accident, I was in the hospital. I had to eat meat in the hospital because they didn’t have any vegan options of protein. So I’d eat bags of beef jerky — whatever they could give me, whatever I could stomach and not think about what I was eating. Because I wasn’t eating at all. I was ditching my food, giving it to my friends because I didn’t want to eat meat but then I got caught. So long story short, I ate a bit of meat in the hospital and when I got out I just felt like the next evolution of my eating would be to try and be vegan.”
John Salley
He told The Real he went vegan out of respect for his body. “If I’m gonna live this life and this is the only body I have, I’m gonna take care of it. I get a Ferrari, get a Benz, you get mad if somebody leans on it, breathe on it, but then you put dollar food in your million-dollar body. That’s ridiculous.”
Nathalie Emmanuel
In an interview with Women’s Health, the Game of Thrones’ actress revealed why she decided to become a vegan. “I ate vegan for one week at first—I would have reassessed if it made me feel really ill, but it made me feel really good, so I carried on for another week, and then I felt even better. People kept coming up to me and telling me I looked glowy and my eyes looked really bright, so I kept going.”
Bellamy Young
Young’s transition to veganism happened after a college dining experience. She told YouBeauty, “I got the baked breast of chicken, and they sort of plated it weird. As I lowered it down to my tray, it looked exactly like my mom’s little furry yippy dog when she’d roll over and want you to rub her tummy. That was it for me.”
Tabitha Brown
In an interview with Goodful, Brown shared what made her to go vegan. After feeling physically sick for a year without knowing why, her daughter encouraged her to watch a movie suggested watching a movie on Netflix that ultimately inspired her to go down the vegan path. The new eating style completely transformed her health.
Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton’s decision to go vegan was based on his respect for animals and the desire to take care of his body. “There’s a multitude of things and I’m always trying to raise the bar. One of the things was my sleeping pattern and not feeling right in the stomach. Your gut is your second brain. We’re taught to drink milk and eat meat for protein and I started looking into other areas of research around this,” he said in an interview with the Independent.
Mya
The singer told Madame Noire, “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I went vegan, but so many things changed. I shed 30 pounds. I felt better. I was doing better mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I was healing myself from the inside out. I didn’t have to work out as much and I cut my budget in half. I just saw all of the benefits in every area in my life, including the creative aspect, and a lot of that has to do with the pineal gland,” she shared with Madame Noire.
Maggie Q
In an interview with VegNews, this model and actress explained the reason she went vegan after speaking with a PETA employee. " We connected, and she sent me information on animal welfare in the fashion, food, and entertainment industries. It made me sick, but nothing prepared me for the truth of the environmental impact of meat production. I quit cold turkey and never looked back. I didn’t understand how I could have ever claimed to love animals but hadn’t made the choices to protect them.”
Pamela Anderson
On her blog The Pamela Anderson Foundation, she spoke out about her veganism beliefs, “So I say, veganism is about more than choosing not to eat animal products. Veganism is bigger than that. Veganism is about saving animals, saving ourselves, saving our societies, and saving our planet!”
RZA
This rapper admitted on The Joe Rogan Experience that he hasn’t eaten meat for years. “I haven’t had a piece of red meat since 1995. I haven’t had a piece of poultry since 1996, after we finished the Liquid Swords album I guess. I haven’t had fish, I stopped eating fish, in 1997.”
Dawn Richard
Richard was inspired to go full vegan after her father’s cancer diagnosis. “It was an eye-opener for me. So, I started going a lot of research—Food, Inc. and going on Netflix and watching all these documentaries on food and healthcare. I was devastated to find out that the food that I was eating was so processed and so bad, and the animals were so mistreated. And I was not happy with it,” she shared in an interview with PETA.
Kat Von D
After watching a moving documentary, this tattoo artist decided to embrace veganism. “After being a vegetarian for years, I stumbled upon the documentary Forks Over Knives. The straightforward information on food and its direct connection to the current state of the world’s bad health just hit home with me. After watching it, I never looked back,” she told Compassionate Living. Next, read What Does It Mean to Be a Vegetarian vs a Vegan? We Got the Experts to Break it Down.
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