Jennifer Coolidge Crowned PETA’s ‘Vegan Queen’

For Immediate Release:
March 7, 2023

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

In recognition of her commitment to animal liberation that’s even stronger than her “bend and snap,” Jennifer Coolidge has won PETA’s Vegan Queen Award for Women’s History Month 2023.

Coolidge’s animal rights bona fides date all the way back to 2003, when she graced the cover of PETA’s cruelty-free shopping guide—and now, her success in The White Lotus (created by fellow vegan and PETA pal Mike White) has given her an even bigger platform for her advocacy. She photoshopped her adopted dogs, Chewbacca (rescued from the meat trade) and Bagpipes, into her Instagram post celebrating her Golden Globes win; she has highlighted vegan fashion in interviews (“I remember a time when you couldn’t go into a designer showroom and find a purse not made of leather. But I think people are changing”); and when she starred in a Super Bowl ad for e.l.f. Beauty, she noted that she’s “always been passionate about vegan and cruelty-free beauty.”

She also revealed that she declined an offer to star in a hot dog commercial playing on one of her iconic lines, “It makes me want a hot dog real bad!” unless the brand agreed to introduce a vegan hot dog, explaining, “You cannot tell the difference. The science that has gone into them, they’re just as tasty.”

“Jennifer Coolidge’s huge heart for animals is rivaled only by the size of her talent,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “PETA is crowning her our ‘Vegan Queen’ this year for using every opportunity she gets to encourage everyone to keep cruelty to animals out of their cuisine, closets, and cosmetics.”

Coolidge is on a long list of celebrities—which includes her White Lotus costar Molly Shannon, her Best in Show costars Jane Lynch and the late Fred Willard, and her American Pie costars Jason Biggs and Casey Affleck—who have teamed up with PETA to promote kindness to animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.