15 Celebrities Who Ditched Meat to Go Vegan or Vegetarian

The Grammy-award winning pop star opened up about his diet and wellness practices in a 2020 interview with Vogue, sharing that he had been following a pescatarian diet for three years. “My body definitely feels better for it,” he said in the interview. Styles made the switch after eating vegan food that several of his current bandmates made on tour. He later confirmed that he doesn’t eat meat during an August 2022 concert in Madison Square Garden in New York City, as Entertainment Weekly reported a fan threw a chicken nugget at him on stage. “I don’t eat chicken — sorry! I don’t eat meat,” he laughed. HIs clean beauty brand, Pleasing, also states that their products are all vegan and cruelty free, and that they “would have it no other way.”

Lea Michele has at least two things in common with Rachel Berry, the character she played on Glee for six seasons: They both starred in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, and they both follow a vegan diet. The star credited her meat-free diet for keeping her feeling “really good and bright,” in a 2010 interview with OK! Magazine. And in an interview in June 2018 with Bravo, she said, “I don't eat meat. I keep my home almost completely vegan. I make sure that I have the best, most healthy ingredients available to me all the time at home.” She adds that one of her go-to breakfasts is a stir-fry packed with spinach, broccoli, and carrots, topped with salsa and avocado, while she always keeps blueberries or carrots to hand for a nutritious snack.

When the beloved Beatle posed for an ad for PETA in 2008, he described the moment he turned vegetarian: “Many years ago, I was fishing, and as I was reeling in the poor fish, I realized, ‘I am killing him — all for the passing pleasure it brings me.’ And something inside me clicked. I realized as I watched him fight for breath that his life was as important to him as mine is to me.” In another interview with PETA, McCartney noted that he also follows a vegetarian diet for environmental reasons, citing overfishing and marine pollution as two major concerns.

The Emmy Award–winning Euphoria star is a proud vegetarian, but doesn’t actually like vegetables. “My main reason for being a vegetarian is that I’m an animal lover — definitely not because I love veggies,” she shared on her now-deleted app, as People magazine reported at the time. The former Disney star first considered going vegetarian when she was 11, after passing a slaughterhouse while on a road trip with her dad, People reports. She officially adopted the diet after watching PETA’s Glass Walls featuring Paul McCartney, who believes that “if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

The songstress has been vegan since 2013. As she explained in an interview published in December 2014 in The Mirror, she made the switch because of her love for animals. “I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding,” she said. She’s admitted that eating out can be complicated but says her usual move is to order what she knows is vegan — fruit, veggies, salads — and then fill up on other things once she’s home. She has also spoken out about animal rights, as PETA noted, and cofounded Orange Twins Rescue, a nonprofit animal rescue in Los Angeles.

The Good Place actress has been a vegetarian since she was 11 years old, according to an interview published in October 2017 on Today.com. She briefly dabbled in veganism (along with husband, Dax Shepherd), reportedly after watching the 2011 documentary Forks Over Knives. But she was concerned she wasn’t taking in enough calories, and switched back to vegetarianism when she was pregnant with her first child, who was born in 2013.

The Stranger Things star told Elle magazine that she switched to a vegetarian diet at 13, after watching the 2008 documentary Food Inc. While a friend teased that she wouldn’t last a week, Sink’s dare soon became a lifestyle. A year later, after spending time with The Glass Castle costar (and longtime vegan) Woody Harrelson and his family, she made the decision to go vegan too. A passionate animal rights activist, Sink uses her platform to advocate and spread awareness about causes such as animal testing, animal rehabilitation, and animal cruelty.

The Black Eyed Peas frontman and judge of The Voice kicked off 2018 in a big way: by swearing off meat and other animal products. He took to Instagram Stories to announce his new veganism — or, as he put it, he joined the “V. Gang.” “I am tired of being pimped by food companies and then eating bad, poisonous food, and feeling bad in the morning,” he reportedly said, according to an article published in January 2018 in VegNews.

The Oscar-winning Black Swan actress loosened her formerly strict vegan diet to include eggs and dairy while she was pregnant. "If you're not eating eggs, then you can't have cookies or cake from regular bakeries, which can become a problem when that's all you want to eat," she revealed to Atlanta's Q100 Bert Show (as ABC News reported). "I actually wanted eggs at the beginning and then they grossed me out after a while."

Brand was crowned the sexiest celebrity vegetarian (along with Kristen Wiig) by PETA in 2011, many years after he ditched meat at age 14. “Even as a junkie I stayed true” to vegetarianism, the comedian wrote of his time as a drug and alcohol addict in his memoir, My Booky Wook, according to Goodreads. “I shall have heroin, but I shan’t have a hamburger. What a sexy little paradox.”

She may have binged on unidentifiable meat in her 2011 summer hit Bridesmaids, but the actress and comedian sticks to a meat-free diet offscreen. In 2011, she was named one of PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity winners. According to PETA, Wiig attributes her fit body to her diet choices, yoga, and running.

The Clueless star is very clued into the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Since she stopped eating dairy, meat, and eggs, the actress says she has more energy, clearer skin, and a healthier attitude toward her weight. In 2010, Silverstone penned a cookbook titled The Kind Diet to inspire others to go vegan. “The kindness is about being truly kind to yourself first," she said on The Oprah Winfrey Show, according to Oprah.com. "Letting yourself have the best health and look your best and feel your most vital."

The actor described his decision to become a vegetarian as one of the best choices of his life, in a video for PETA. Whitaker also credited a meatless diet for helping him lose weight after his Academy Award–winning role in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland. “I gained a lot of weight to play Idi Amin, and afterward I got a little more serious about diet and exercise. Also, I don't think being a vegetarian hurts,” he said in an article published in Parade magazine.

This past winner of PETA’s Sexiest Celebrity Vegetarian title tries to be aware of where her food comes from. “Often we forget the power of each of our purchases. We are the consumer, the demand, and the fuel for every industry we choose to support. Therefore, I try to be mindful about where my dollar votes go, and this is a huge reason I have chosen to adopt a vegan diet,” she wrote in a since-removed post on her website, CBS News reported. “Beyond my desire to boycott the torture factories, I am way happier when I eat a plant-based diet, and I feel about a thousand times more energetic.”

The American Idol winner and Grammy Award–winning country singer quit eating red meat after watching her parents castrate a cow, according to an article published in October 2012 in Taste of Country. These days, she sticks to a mostly vegan diet. “I want to be vegan so badly, all the way, 1,000 percent,” she said in an article published in January 2017 in Self. “But traveling and stuff, it just kind of gets hard. Sometimes I may have to do some egg whites or something for breakfast.”