Gen Z superstar Billie Eilish doesn’t separate climate activism from animal welfare
Billie Eilish could eat that girl for lunch — but she’s certainly not eating any animals for dinner.
The 22-year-old pop star has a lot of triumphs under her belt: nine Grammys, two Oscars, and two Golden Globes. Her music has been nearly inescapable in the last year, from a sultry feature on Charli XCX’s “Guess” remix to the emotive “What Was I Made For” for the blockbuster Barbie movie. But arguably one of her biggest — yet under-recognized — achievements is making caring about animal welfare more accessible … and cool.
A vegan of almost a decade, Eilish has dedicated a large portion of her career to improving the music industry’s sustainability, as well as encouraging her fans to consider plant-based diets. While she grew up vegetarian and had never eaten meat, she understands what it means to give up something you enjoy: Dairy was a fixture in her family’s life. “With dairy, my God, did I love cheese and milk,” she told Los Angeles Magazine in 2023. “I was very, very against going vegan. [Then] my mom went vegan, then my brother, then my dad. I was the only one not vegan for years.”
The shift came as she learned about the horrifying consequences of the meat and dairy industries. Researchers estimate that animal agriculture is responsible for between 15 and 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and takes up more than a third of the planet’s habitable land.
The factory farm system brutally kills more than 80 billion land animals a year, as Future Perfect has long reported — animals that are crammed in tiny cages, forced to endure cruel abuses, and generally never go outside. It also takes a toll on the communities living near factory farms. One study found that in eastern North Carolina — a major chicken and pig factory farm state — residents who live near these farms experience higher rates of kidney disease and infant mortality compared to other rural residents. Workers, too, face higher risks of exposure to potential new viruses: So far, sick workers account for nearly all of California’s cattle-to-human transmissions of bird flu in October.
“Once you know that kind of thing and you see it, it’s really hard to go back,” Eilish said in a 2021 video interview with Vogue. “And now, even though I have lots of friends that eat dairy and meat and I don’t ever want to tell anybody what to do, I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going on in the animal world and like, not doing anything about it.”
Celebrity advocacy often boils down to raising awareness, which can be effective, especially when you have 120 million Instagram followers and a sold-out 83-stop world tour. Eilish, the first singer born in the 21st century to have a single top the Billboard 100, also has a palpable Gen Z je nais se quoi when talking about animal rights. She’s relatable. When she went on the YouTube talk show Hot Ones (where guests are challenged to eat spicy chicken wings) five years ago, she joked about growing up with the internet and bad talent shows, all while noshing on very spicy (vegan!) chicken nuggets and without making a big deal about the swap.
“Vegans have a reputation of being incredibly annoying,” she told Los Angeles Magazine. “And a lot of the time, they are. Sorry. Because you know why? Nobody wants to be told what to do … I want it to be clear that I’m not preaching.”
But Eilish’s work for animals also extends far beyond just speaking up about the conditions in factory farms or zoos. She subtly nudges her fans to make more environmentally friendly choices by spotlighting her 120 favorite vegan restaurants in tour cities, ensuring that plant-based meals are available at every venue, and limiting her merch drops to focus on affordable, sustainable options. (Her perfumes, too, do not test on animals.)
“Sometimes people have the idea of when things are more ethical, they’re more expensive, and so it’s harder to be plant-based or environmentally conscious if you don’t have as much money,” Eilish told Billboard back in March. “And so what we’re trying to do is make it more universally accessible.”
On a larger scale, the “Birds of a Feather” singer fights for progress by forcing change within large institutions, like major fashion brands. The fashion industry — from wool to leather to down — maims and kills billions of animals for clothing and footwear every year. There’s also a pervasive misconception that fabrics like leather and wool are merely byproducts of meat production, rather than co-products that make up a meaningful share of animal agriculture’s profits. The problem has only accelerated with the normalization of hyperconsumerism.
In 2022, Eilish worked with Nike to create the first vegan leather Air Force 1 sneakers, made with 18 percent recycled materials. More notably, when Eilish was a co-chair for the Met Gala in 2021, she pushed for designer Oscar de la Renta to permanently stop using fur — otherwise she wouldn’t work with them. They did.
“That was really important to me,” Eilish told Billboard. “It’s tough as a person who loves fashion. I’ve tried to be a big advocate of no animal products in clothing and it’s hard. People really like classic things. I get it, I’m one of them. But what’s more important: things being original or our kids being able to live on the planet and them having kids?”
To Eilish, veganism isn’t a diet. It’s a way of interacting with the world. Change can be as small as opting for a mushroom burger at a concert or as big as changing an entire business model. In a culture increasingly shaped by celebrity tastes and influence, Eilish stands out as one who is using her power for good.