Kendall Jenner, Joey King, Kaley Cuoco, Ricky Gervais Want Horse-Drawn Carriages Banned

Dozens of Stars Join PETA’s Push for a Ban After NYC Horse Collapse

For Immediate Release:
August 17, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Outrageous! End horse-drawn carriage cruelty! That’s the message Hollywood A-listers are sharing in droves to their millions of followers on social media following the collapse of yet another horse forced to pull a carriage in the heat.

Model Kendall Jenner; actors Kaley Cuoco, Joey King, and Taryn Manning; comedians Ricky Gervais and Nikki Glaser; reality TV star Heather Rae El Moussa; artist Saint Hoax; and other stars were all moved by footage of a horse who collapsed on a busy New York City street only to be slapped, whipped, and screamed at by the carriage driver. As a result, hundreds of millions of people have now seen the horrifying video and over 95,000 PETA supporters have petitioned New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.

“After seeing this horse collapse onto hot pavement and endure a beating, Hollywood’s biggest stars are spearheading change for horses and rallying their hundreds of millions of fans,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “With this much star power backing PETA’s proposed ban, all eyes are on New York City to replace the horses with modern electric carriages.”

Jenner had posted footage of the tragedy with the caption “stop this now” for her 254 million Instagram followers; Gervais wrote, “So [expletive] sad” to PETA on Twitter; and Cuoco concluded on Instagram, “We are better than this. You are better than this.”

PETA joined New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) and other local advocates to call on the city to end the cruelty. Horses suffer when forced to pull oversize loads, toil in all weather extremes, dodge traffic, and pound the pavement all day long. They may develop respiratory ailments because they breathe in exhaust fumes, and they can suffer from debilitating leg problems from walking on hard surfaces. There have also been many incidents in which carriages have been hit by impatient or careless drivers. Such accidents have occurred in nearly every city where carriage rides are allowed.

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