19 Celebrities Share the Reasons Why They Decided To Go Vegan

Eating vegan is a diet choice many people make. Sure, for buffalo chicken lovers, it may seem like torture, but there are many reasons people decide to cut out all animal products from their meals. If you’re trying to choose whether or not you should try going vegan, let these celebrities tell you why made the decision to (and aren’t looking back):

  1. Venus Williams

    “I started for health reasons. 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.”

  2. Ariana Grande

    “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.”

  3. Billie Eilish

    “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. Damn. Also I’m lactose intolerant and dairy is horrible for your skin and my skin is VERY aware of that.”

  4. Natalie Portman

    “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.”

  5. Taraji P. Henson

    “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.”

  6. Woody Harrelson

    “I was on a bus and some girl sees me blowing my nose. I had acne all over my face, which I’d had for years and years. And she’s like: ‘Hey, you’re lactose intolerant. If you quit dairy, all these symptoms you got will be gone in three days.’ I was like 24. And I was like, ‘no way.’ But three days later: gone. So I started thinking to myself, Jeez, I’ve always been told nothing but ‘milk does a body good.’ It’s a fundamental thing. So from there it was like, ‘what else are they lying about?’ I just started realizing: There are all these things we’re brought up to believe that are just a total hoax, just bullshit advertising, you know?”

  7. Nathalie Emmanuel

    “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.”

  8. Stevie Wonder

    “We have to be about making our planet more greener, the urban areas more sustainable for the children. We can’t just talk about it, we have to be about it.”

  9. Alicia Silverstone

    “I just took a look at my dog and said, ‘If I’m not willing to eat you, how can I continue to eat these other creatures that have the same desire to live, are just as funny, just as cute as my dogs?'”

  10. Jessica Chastain

    “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. … 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.”

  11. Cody Kearsley

    “I’ve been vegan for three years now. I became vegan after researching the health benefits of a plant-based diet. I stayed vegan after learning about the horrors of the meat and dairy industry and the catastrophic impact it has to the animals, our planet, and our bodies.”

  12. Harley Quinn Smith

    “My mom has been vegetarian most of my life, and that was definitely a huge part of the inspiration. What really pushed me was my rabbit, Cinnamon Bun. When I adopted her, she was in terrible condition. Now she’s the love of my life. To see what human compassion could do to a traumatized animal really changed everything for me. If I hadn’t gone vegan, I’d be ignoring the cold, hard truth that was right in front of me.”

  13. Leona Lewis

    “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 any more. 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.’ Also I remember walking along Oxford Circus as a child and seeing big posters of animals being tested on. Seeing those images when you’re little is quite traumatic. That is quite a vivid memory.”

  14. Mayim Bialik

    “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.”

  15. Kevin Smith

    “My heart attack was the weirdest, worst thing that ever happened to Harley. It was like a punch in the face. She stuck by my side in the hospital. She was there when the nutritionist brought up going vegan. The kid seized on it. So I said, ‘You know what, I’ve eaten the way I’ve wanted to for like 47 years, and it led me here. So I’ll try eating your way for six months.’ It’s been a year. I’m never tempted. I feel like more has been given to me, including more time, more compassion. Once you step away from the meat industrial complex, suddenly you’re just like, ‘Geez, that’s a lot of misery.'”

  16. Kyrie Irving

    “This season I’ve been on more of a plant-based diet, getting away from all the animals and all that. I had to get away from that. So my energy is up, my body feels amazing. Just understanding what the diet is like for me and what’s beneficial for me for having the highest energy out here and being able to sustain it at a very high level.”

  17. Rooney Mara

    “”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.”

  18. Kate Mara

    “I’ve been a vegan for five years. I found it hard to give up cheese at first because I love it so much. But I haven’t missed meat at all. 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.”

  19. Pamela Anderson

    “Veganism is about saving animals, saving ourselves, saving our societies, and saving our planet!”

Did you know all of these celebrities were vegan? What do you think of their reasonings? Would you ever try being vegan?