Singers, actors, and athletes are going vegan in growing numbers. For some, the decision is rooted in concern for animals or the environment; for others, it’s about improving their health. But whatever their individual motivations, the impact is undeniable.
Below, we’ve highlighted some of the stars who proudly follow a vegan lifestyle.
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1 Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish has been vegan since the age of 12. Throughout her career in the public eye, she has used her platform to raise awareness of the lifestyle and has spoken out about the climate crisis and animal rights on multiple occasions. She has also released two of her own vegan, cruelty-free perfumes and collaborated with Nike to release vegan sneakers.
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2 Joaquin Phoenix
Academy Award-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix has been vegan for most of his life. Throughout his career, he has lent his voice to vegan documentaries, and animal-rights protests, and even used high-profile award ceremonies to raise awareness of the cause. “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal,” he said during his acceptance speech for the Best Actor Oscar in 2020.
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3 Rooney Mara
Actor Rooney Mara, who is married to Phoenix, is passionate about animal rights. Like her husband, she has also lent her voice to the cause and voiced an animal-rights documentary called With My Own Eyes in 2019. Mara also has her own vegan fashion brand, which is called Hiraeth Collective.
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4 Kate Mara
Veganism runs in the Mara family, because like her sister, Kate Mara is also totally plant-based. “My love of animals and animal activism has grown over the years so it was a no-brainer for me to become a vegan. It took me a little while to fully give up cheese; otherwise, it was easy,” the actor told Animal Equality in 2018. She also produced a vegan documentary, called The Smell of Money, and is a proud supporter and representative of Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue & Protection.
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5 Natalie Portman
Actor Natalie Portman first gave up meat when she was just nine years old, before going vegan in 2011. She credits the book “Eating Animals” with helping her ditch animal products completely, which is why she narrated the novel’s follow-up documentary in 2017. In the past, Portman has linked her passion for animal rights and women’s rights together. “We’re exploiting female bodies and abusing the magic of female animals to create eggs and milk,” she said in a speech on WE Day.
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6 Richa Moorjani
Richa Moorjani, who starred in Netflix’s coming-of-age comedy Never Have I Ever, has been vegan since she watched Cowspiracy in 2019. “From the day I turned vegan, I felt my eyes were opened to not just the horrors of the animal-industrial complex—which was beyond anything I even imagined—but also to the impact on the environment,” she told VegNews. ‘It fueled my activism and in a way gave me a sense of purpose I had long been searching for.”
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7 Daniella Monet
As well as an actor, Nickelodeon child star Daniella Monet is now an entrepreneur, influencer, mom, and proud vegan. “I live a transparent plant-based lifestyle and share it with my social following, friends, and family,” she told VegNews. Find out more about her daily routine here.
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8Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton has been vocal about the benefits of veganism since he made the move away from animal products after watching the documentary What the Health in 2017. The Formula One champion says he has more energy since ditching animal products, and also feels more productive.
Travis Barker Wellness
9 Travis Barker
Travis Barker hasn’t eaten meat since his teens, aside from a brief spell in the hospital while he was recovering from a plane crash. He went vegan shortly after the incident and has proudly backed animal-rights causes and plant-based businesses since, including Los Angeles plant-based restaurant Crossroads Kitchen. In 2022, he also launched his own line of vegan CBD skincare, called Barker Wellness.
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10Nathalie Emmanuel
Actor Nathalie Emmanuel, who is known primarily for her role in Game of Thrones, has been vegan since 2012. She told Women’s Health that she tried going plant-based for a week at first, but noticed so many improvements, like better sleep and higher energy, she decided to stick with it.
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11Venus Williams
In 2011, Venus Williams was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Sjögren’s syndrome. She decided to try to manage the condition with a plant-based diet and has never looked back. “To be able to control as much as I can—what’s happening in my body, my inflammation levels—through what I eat is a godsend. Plant-based definitely changed my life,” the tennis star, who has invested in several vegan brands, told Insider.
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12Will.i.am
After learning he had high blood pressure and cholesterol in 2017, rapper Will.i.am decided to make a big lifestyle change and went vegan. Since then, he has been a huge advocate for plant-based living and says his sleep has improved, his energy is higher, and he has lost weight. “It changed my life, and I would encourage everybody to have a plant-based regimen,” he once told the Mirror.
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13Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson has been vegan for decades. The actor first gave up dairy in his early 20s, after realizing he may be lactose intolerant, and soon gave up the rest of the animal products in his diet too. Now, he is a passionate plant-based advocate. He has worked on animal-rights campaigns, backed vegan brands financially, and lent his voice to the 2020 documentary Kiss the Ground.
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14Sadie Sink
Actor Sadie Sink, now known for her role on Stranger Things, worked with Harrelson on a film in 2014. He influenced her to also give up animal products after she realized how easy it could be. Now, she’s a committed advocate for veganism and has even worked with vegetarian designer Stella McCartney to promote ethical fashion.
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15Madelaine Petsch
Riverdale star Madelaine Petsch has never eaten meat, but at the age of 14, she decided to make the leap from vegetarian to vegan, and now, she’s an advocate for making the lifestyle seem fun, easy, and approachable. “People make it seem like it’s so difficult. I want to teach people how positive and easy it is to be vegan—I don’t want to make it seem like it’s this big feat,” she told Elle in 2020.
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16Romesh Ranganathan
British comedian Romesh Ranganathan hasn’t eaten meat since the age of 12, but it wasn’t until his adult life that he went totally plant-based. Now, he says the lifestyle even makes him better at his job. “To be a good comedian, in my opinion, you have to look at the world in an unusual way. You really analyze everything. If you look at veganism, and question how we do things, and how we should be living, veganism, to me, seems like the logical way,” he told Vegan Life magazine.
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17Tabitha Brown
In 2017, Tabitha Brown became an overnight social media sensation after she uploaded a video of herself raving about a vegan BLT she found in Whole Foods. Now, she has partnerships with Target and millions of followers on both TikTok and Instagram, where she frequently posts plant-based food videos.
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18Heather Rae El Moussa
Former Selling Sunset cast member Heather Rae El Moussa is a strong advocate for the positive impact that going plant-based can have on your health, but she’s also a big animal lover, so going vegan was an easy decision for her. She told VegNews that, alongside her husband Tarek El Moussa, she tries to teach her stepchildren about how important nutrition is. “We explain that food can heal us, and we don’t just eat food for taste—we eat food to live,” she said. “We tell them how important it is to eat healthy, as we only have one body.”
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19Evanna Lynch
Harry Potter star Evanna Lynch has focused on being a vegan advocate since she stopped playing the role of Luna Lovegood in 2007. She used to host the plant-based podcast The Chickpeeps and also co-founded a cruelty-free beauty box called Kinder Beauty.
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20 Paul Wesley
Actor Paul Wesley, who is best known for his role in The Vampire Diaries, has become an animal-rights activist and often uses his platform to speak up for animals and the planet. “I’ve signed the Plant Based Treaty because animal farming has obliterated our beautiful forests and animals beyond recognition. We need to shift to vegan diets to protect our rivers, oceans, air, and soils,” he said in a statement shared on Twitter in 2022.
Carmelo Redondo
21Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson has long been a passionate advocate for animal rights and the various benefits of veganism. She has worked with PETA on multiple campaigns, released a cookbook, and collaborated with designers to launch luxury leather-free handbags.
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22Leona Lewis
Singer Leona Lewis is a huge animal lover, and that’s the main reason she decided to drop all animal products from her diet in 2012. Before that, she was a long-term vegetarian. She is one of five trustees of the UK animal sanctuary Hopefield, and in 2018, both she and the sanctuary teamed up with the Humane Society International (HSI) to promote plant-based living. She owns a vegan café, called Coffee and Plants, in Pasadena, CA.
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23Mya
Singer Mya has made veganism a key part of her brand. Her website even once offered a Free Vegan Starter Guide, and she has her own line of vegan wine called Planet 9. In 2020, she ran a series of plant-based challenges, where she helped people to go vegan, raw vegan, alkaline vegan, or take up juicing.
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24Kevin Smith
After actor and filmmaker Kevin Smith suffered a heart attack, he decided to follow his daughter Harley Quinn Smith’s advice and go vegan. He has stuck with the lifestyle and has even hosted a vegan podcast with his daughter, called Vegan Abattoir. In 2018, he worked with Farm Sanctuary to change people’s attitudes around eating turkeys on Thanksgiving.
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25 Alicia Silverstone
Best known for her iconic role in the noughties hit Clueless, Alicia Silverstone is a long-term vegan and animal advocate. She has even written two books on the subject (The Kind Diet and The Kind Mama) and has her own line of plant-based vitamins with mykind Organics. She has longstanding relationships with many animal-rights organizations, and in 2022, on Mother’s Day, she teamed up with Farm Sanctuary to raise awareness of factory farm cruelty.
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26Colin Kaepernick
In 2016, the same year that he famously took a knee in protest ahead of a match, football player and activist Colin Kaepernick switched to a vegan diet. He did so for health reasons, alongside his girlfriend Nessa Diab. Ben & Jerry’s previously honored the athlete’s social justice work with a new vegan flavor called Change the Whirled, as well as a 90-foot mural in Florida.
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27Ariana Grande
Singer and Wicked star Ariana Grande is not just known for her impressive vocals but also for her compassionate lifestyle. She follows a vegan diet, has adopted several pets (nine dogs and one pig), and even helped to open an animal sanctuary in Los Angeles called Orange Twins Rescue in 2020. Plus, both her makeup and fragrance lines are vegan and cruelty-free.
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28Ruby Rose
Actor Ruby Rose went vegan in 2014, after finding out the cruelty behind the Chinese delicacy shark fin soup. “I used to get something called ‘shark fin soup’ and I didn’t know. I said to my mom, ‘Wait, is this made out of an actual shark’s fin?’ and she was like, ‘Oh no, darling, of course not.’ I later found out that it was, and ended up being so sad that I cried for three weeks,” she said on an episode of Discovery’s Shark After Dark.
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29Moby
Moby has been vegan since the 1980s. According to the musician, his family pets caused him to have an epiphany about the animals on his plate. “I realized that every animal with two eyes and a central nervous system has a rich emotional life and a deep desire to avoid pain,” he once said in a TedX talk. Now, he regularly supports animal rights and donates all of the profits from his 2020 memoir and 2018 album to animal-rights organizations. He used to have a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles called Little Pine, and a tattoo on his neck reads “Vegan for life.”
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30Jessica Chastain
Actor Jessica Chastain accidentally went vegan after trying out a friend’s plant-based food delivery program. She immediately noticed that her energy levels had improved, and she generally just felt better. “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 in 2017.
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31 Elliot Page
Actor Elliot Page has been vegan for many years. He’s not hugely vocal about it, but in 2011, he did Tweet: “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?”
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32Alan Cumming
In 2012, actor Alan Cumming decided to ditch animal products for good. And since then, he has used his platform to progress the movement. He once joined up with PETA to urge COP26 to only serve vegan food. In a letter to Alok Sharma, the president of COP26, he wrote: “Given that animal agriculture contributes to many of the serious environmental problems the planet is facing, I hope you’ll agree that serving meat while trying to fight climate change is like serving beer at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.”
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33Sara Pascoe
Comedian Sara Pascoe stopped eating meat after she visited a farm at the age of 7. Now, she’s a vegan, and like Ranganathan, she says it gives her comedy inspiration. “All my former boyfriends become vegan, and it’s really annoying. I plan to write a standup about it because they’re never vegan when I’m with them. I feel they think about it more after breaking up,” she told The Guardian.
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34 James Cromwell
Actor James Cromwell was inspired to go vegan after filming 1995’s Babe, a movie that follows the life of an orphaned pig. Since then, he has become a passionate animal-rights activist and has consistently used his platform to advocate for vegan causes. He even once superglued himself to a Starbucks counter in protest against the coffee giant’s vegan milk charge.
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35Mayim Bialik
Like Portman, the book Eating Animals inspired actor Mayim Bialik to go vegan. She has her own plant-based cookbook called Mayim’s Vegan Table and even opened her own vegan restaurant called Bodhi Bowl in Los Angeles, but it has now closed.
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36 Bryan Adams
Musician Bryan Adams decided to go vegan when he was 28 and hasn’t touched animal products since. “If you love animals, you shouldn’t eat them,” he told This Is Vegan. After becoming a founding member of the now-defunct dairy alternative startup Bettermoo(d), he said: “Fostering responsible eating habits, such as choosing plant-based dairy alternatives, is something that we can all do to help lessen animal cruelty and help our environment.”
JD’s Vegan
37Jermaine Dupri
Musician Jermaine Dupri has been vegan for nearly 20 years, and in 2021, he celebrated his commitment to the lifestyle with the launch of his own dairy-free ice cream brand. “JD’s Vegan ice creams taste as good as, or better than, the real thing,” he said in a statement at the time. “You don’t have to lose anything going vegan. JD’s Vegan ice cream proves you can gain nothing but quality foods with out-of-this-world flavor and taste.”
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38Tig Notaro
Stand-up comedian Tig Notaro transitioned to a vegan diet after undergoing a double mastectomy to remove breast cancer in 2012. “I am a firm believer in the healing powers of food. I noticed an immediate difference in my day-to-day pain levels after changing my diet,” she told VegOut. “Not everything is magically cured, but my life looks vastly different than before.”
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39Elaine Hendrix
Actor Elaine Hendrix, who is known for movies like The Parent Trap and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, hasn’t eaten meat since 1995 and has been vegan since 2006. In 2022, she was awarded the Celebrity Activist Award by the international animal rights organization Last Chance for Animals for her work as an advocate for animal rights.
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40Emily Deschanel
Bones star Emily Deschanel has been vegan since she was 17 and remains a committed animal rights advocate. In 2021, she told the Vegetarian Times that her “main concern” is the treatment of farm animals in the food industry. “People don’t even know what they are supporting by what they eat,” she said. “So I do what I can to get awareness out about that. I host events, give money and time, and write letters of support.”
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41Tobey Maguire
Tobey Maguire, aka Spider-Man, hasn’t eaten meat since the early 1990s, and in 2009, he gave up dairy and eggs, too, and became a vegan. He reportedly decided out of love for animals and respect and concern for the environment.
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42Sara Gilbert
Roseanne actor Sara Gilbert went vegetarian as a teenager, before eventually deciding to go vegan more than a decade ago. She once said, “I’m totally self-centered. I would make everyone vegan [if I were president].”
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43 Stevie Wonder
Iconic musician Stevie Wonder has been vegan since 2013, but he stopped eating pork and beef in his mid-20s. He has spoken about the sustainability and health benefits of the diet in the past. In one red carpet interview, he said, “People have to make their choices in life, and for me, it feels good to not eat meat. I think you have to do what is going to be healthy for your body.”
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44 Ricky Gervais
British comedian Ricky Gervais used to be a longtime vegetarian, but after feeling hypocritical for eating dairy and supporting animal charities, he decided to make the switch to veganism. That said, Gervais revealed on The Overlap podcast in 2024 that the change was gradual. “I just sort of generally phased it out over my life, I suppose,” he explained.
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45 RZA
RZA is a hip hop legend, but he’s also a proud animal rights advocate. In fact, he’s been vegan for more than two decades. He once said on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, “No animals need to die for me to live, okay?”
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46Lucy Watson
English reality TV star, entrepreneur, and influencer Lucy Watson has long been a champion of animal rights issues and the vegan lifestyle. She turned vegetarian at the age of six, before making the jump to veganism around 2016, after watching Cowspiracy. “Becoming vegan has drastically changed my life,” she told Marie Claire in 2019. “I now have so much energy, I feel hyper, and it’s dawned on me how sluggish I felt before when I consumed too much dairy produce.”
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47 Thandiwe Newton
Like Sink, Thandiwe Newton is also vegan because of Harrelson. During the filming for 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, she says the actor successfully convinced her to rethink her intake of animal products. “I think it’s good to have a vegan in the mix … a vegan in a position of power,” she told the Associated Press. “I have been vegan since working with Woody.”
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48Daisy Ridley
Daisy Ridley initially decided to go vegan for ethical reasons after watching the 2017 movie Carnage. Soon after, she discovered the health benefits of the lifestyle, too. In 2024, she said that even though she is 100 percent plant-based, she still cooks meat for other people. “There is pleasure in cooking something for people that you’re not able to eat,” she said.
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49 Danielle Brooks
Actor Danielle Brooks went vegan in 2017. She said at the time: “I was never taught how to eat properly, how food is fuel. So this is my way of teaching myself how to eat properly.” Since then, she has kept up with the lifestyle and often shares her vegan cooking on social media.
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50 Maggie Q
Actor and environmental activist Maggie Q belongs to the longtime vegan club. In fact, she has followed the lifestyle for more than 25 years. “When I [gave up meat], my convictions were rooted in animal cruelty and environmental impact,” she told The Beet. “That’s why I gave up meat. Because it wasn’t about me and vanity and health, my convictions were very strong—so I never fell off the wagon.”
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51 Chris Packham
British TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham was a longtime vegetarian before he decided to go vegan in 2019, after trying Veganuary for the first time. Since then, he’s never looked back. “I continue to have concerns about animal welfare and transportation,” he said before embarking on the challenge in 2018. “I don’t see any difference between the way I should treat my dog, who I love and whose well-being I’m preoccupied with, and a pig, who is just as intelligent and important as Scratchy, but is kept in a concrete pen where it can’t turn around.”
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52 Oli Skyes
Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes went vegetarian at the age of 16, after taking a PETA flyer outside a pub. Then, 15 years later, he made the switch to veganism. “It was a mixture of realising the dairy industry isn’t good at all either, and also reading this book, called ‘Skinny Bitch‘, which is a terrible name, but a great book,” he told Form Nutrition. “It explained in layman’s terms how gross it all is.”
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53 Jon Stewart
“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart is a vegan, animal advocate, and friend to the animals through his animal sanctuary, which he runs with his wife, Tracey Stewart. “It became untenable for me to make that decision, you know. That decision of ‘I think you’ll be better off if I kill you,” he said.
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54Sam Ryder
British singer Sam Ryder is vegan primarily because of his love for animals—he once even ran a vegan café —but he’s also experienced notable health benefits, including improved vocal health. Ryder has said that cutting out dairy has been particularly beneficial for his vocal cords.
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55 Jennifer Coolidge
Beloved actor Jennifer Coolidge is best known for her performances in films like Legally Blonde and the TV series The White Lotus, but she’s also a longtime vegan and animal advocate. In 2023, PETA crowned the star its “Vegan Queen” in recognition of her “commitment to animal liberation.”
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56 Cynthia Erivo
Just like Wicked co-star Grande, Cynthia Erivo also follows a plant-based diet. “When I was vegan, my body was really happy,” she said on the Dish podcast. “When I wasn’t, it was very sluggish and couldn’t really function.”
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Charlotte is a VegNews editor and writer based in sunny Southsea on England's southern coast.
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