Dawn Richard Strips Down in New PETA Ad

‘Blackheart’ Singer and New Orleans Native Ditches the Crawfish and Gumbo, Feels Great After Going Vegan

For Immediate Release:
July 22, 2015

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Singer Dawn Richard, former member of smash-hit girl group Danity Kane, is no stranger to turning heads on the music scene, as her January solo release Blackheart—which shot to number two on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart—affirms. Now, she’s starring in a brand-new PETA ad campaign in which she bares it all beside the words “Body by Vegan.”

“I was devastated to find out that the food I was eating was so processed and so bad, and the animals were so mistreated and I was not happy and it made me immediately … go cold turkey,” says Richard, also known as D∆WN, in an exclusive video interview.

Going vegan is a great way to boost your health, as vegans are less prone to developing heart disease, strokes, diabetes, cancer, and obesity than meat-eaters are. Richard presented these facts and inspired her father to boost his health by leaving meat off his plate. “[M]y whole life has changed,” she says. “I get up earlier, I want to exercise, I feel better, my skin feels better —and these are things I didn’t even know [about vegan eating], coming from the south, coming from New Orleans.” And of course, every person who goes vegan spares more than 100 animals every year extreme suffering on farms, in slaughterhouses, and on the decks of fishing boats.

Richard joins a growing list of celebrities—including Angela Simmons, Kid Ink, Masta Killa, Kimberly Elise, RZA, Chilli, Forest Whitaker, and Waka Flocka Flame—who’ve teamed up with PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat,” to promote healthy and humane meat-free meals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.