Joaquin Phoenix joins forces with PETA to promote the 'Change the World From Your Kitchen' initiative.
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Joaquin Phoenix has spoken out to implore the public to ‘reject animal cruelty’ and ‘change the world from your kitchen’ by going vegan.
The Oscar-winning actor, who has been vegan since he was 3 years old after he and his siblings “witnessed fish being killed in a really violent and aggressive way”, made the comments as part of a video for PETA’s new ‘Change the World From Your Kitchen’ campaign.
Phoenix appears in a video advert for the campaign which sheds a light on PETA’s investigation exposing the cruelty inflicted on birds at a major American egg farm in Licking County, Ohio which supplies Walmart.
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Animal abuse
Footage from the undercover investigation revealed chickens were forced to live in horrendous conditions with severe crowding and showed workers breaking their necks by twisting and pulling on them.
Birds had no place to stand, sit, or lie down except on the bare wire flooring of the cages, and many were missing feathers, often the result of stress-induced self-mutilation or fighting, as each bird had less than a square foot of space.
‘Living hell’
Speaking passionately to the camera from his kitchen, Phoenix says: “We are not a society that believes it’s okay to abuse animals. We intuitively recoil at the very thought of animal abuse because the suffering of an innocent being is too much to bear.
“Recent undercover footage exposes how the factory farming industry maligns our values and exploits our trust. These animals are in a living hell and under the guise of deceptive unregulated labels like cage-free and free-range consumers are led to believe that they are making a kinder choice.
“They are not. There’s so much pain in the world that we are powerless over, but being party to animal suffering is not one of them. It’s easy to escape personal responsibility by actively avoiding the truth. But I hope you will join me in rejecting animal cruelty … [and] explore the many benefits of being vegan.”
Oscars speech
Joaquin made headlines after scooping up multiple awards for his role in The Joker movie and for his impassioned acceptance speeches slamming the injustice cows in the dairy industry are subjected to.
A week later he scooped up the Academy Award for Best Actor and less than 48 hours after winning the award he was seen liberating cows from slaughter.
Find more information about the investigation here.
