Heather Rae Young Is a Blushing Vegan Bride-to-Be in New PETA Ad

For Immediate Release:
September 2, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Wearing a beautiful wedding gown made of cauliflower, Selling Sunset star Heather Rae Young appears in a new PETA campaign encouraging everyone to say, “I do!” to healthy and delicious animal-free food. She unveiled the ad alongside her fiancé Tarek El Moussa at a special bridal shower hosted for her by PETA at the Kindred Spirits Care Farm, an animal sanctuary in California, on Thursday.

Young, who has been vegan for 12 years, is currently in major wedding planning mode, and in an interview with PETA, she reveals that vegan food will be front and center on her and El Moussa’s big day: “We are incorporating a lot of vegan food into the wedding. I definitely want a chocolate peanut butter cake, so Tarek and I already did some taste testing. We have not finalized what we’re gonna do, but we’re definitely gonna do a big vegan cake.”

“Tarek is the most supportive person of my vegan diet. … He’ll try my food [and say], I like your food better.” His two children are completely sold on vegan food, too, and when Young whips up Beyond Meat meatballs, his son says, “This is my favorite meal!”

The TV star also discusses the meaning behind her animal rights–inspired tattoos, such as the “269” on her wrist, which is “about a cow in Israel [who] was being slaughtered, so a bunch of vegans got 269, the number of the tag that was on his ear.”

Each person who goes vegan like Young saves nearly 200 animals every year; reduces their risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer; and helps prevent future epidemics and pandemics. SARS, swine flu, bird flu, and COVID-19 all stemmed from confining and killing animals for food.

“Just try it,” she says. “[Y]ou’ll love it, and you’ll feel a lot better.”

Young is part of a long list of PETA pals—including Alicia Silverstone, Natalie Portman, Thandie Newton, Joaquin Phoenix, Pamela Anderson, Maggie Q, Woody Harrelson, Bellamy Young, RZA, Peter Dinklage, Madelaine Petsch, Evanna Lynch, and Mýa—who’ve teamed up with the group or its affiliates to encourage people to stop eating animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.