Jennifer Coolidge Is PETA’s 2023 Vegan Queen

Last week, patron saint of the LGBTQ+ community and all animals, actress Jennifer Coolidge, was honored by PETA as their 2023 Vegan Queen. If you’ve only jumped on the Coolidge bandwagon since her award-winning role as Tanya on HBO’s The White Lotus, you’ll be familiar with the 61-year-old actress’s beloved dogs, Bagpipes and Chewbacca, who have a significant presence on her Instagram.

While the actress’s dogs couldn’t make it to many of the award shows Coolidge went to and subsequently won last awards season, she made sure they were included by Photoshopping them into her Golden Globes winning photo. This awards season, the actress, who rivals Owen Wilson with her pronunciation of the word “wow,” has made it clear that she loves animals on both land and sea. On the red carpet at the Globes this year, she revealed, much to the delight of her fans, that her dream is to play a dolphin. 

PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lang spoke about honoring Coolidge with the award in a press release: “Jennifer Coolidge’s huge heart for animals is rivaled only by the size of her talent. 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’s relationship with PETA goes all the way back to 2003, when she was the cover star of PETA’s cruelty free gift guide. She’s been a long-time vegan and in an interview with in 2020 said she feels “like the Beyond Burger is orgasmic sometimes.” Her dedication to veganism even led the actress to decline starring in a hot dog commercial that would have let her say her now iconic Legally Blonde 2 line, “It makes me want a hot dog real bad!” She told them she would reconsider this ask only if they introduced a vegan hot dog, which according to Coolidge, (and she’s not wrong), is just as tasty. 

Aside from being Beyond Burger’s number-one fan, she also regularly highlights vegan fashion brands and starred in a 2023 Super Bowl commercial for e.l.f. Cosmetics, a 100 percent vegan and cruelty-free company. Coolidge’s commitment to animal rights expands into her personal and professional life; both of her current dogs are rescues, and Chewbacca was rescued from a Korean meat factory. Even back in 2016, Coolidge collaborated with ASPCA on a campaign, in which she spoke about how she rescued her dogs Dilly and Monkey and admitted that there weren’t “a lot of boundaries” with her pups.

For Coolidge, being crowned PETA’s Vegan Queen was clearly important enough to make it to her main Instagram grid, complete with a very Lisa Frank-inspired post with Coolidge wearing a crown surrounded by a pig, a dog, and yes, dolphins. In her sweet caption, Coolidge said PETA was the first animal rights group she learned about: “You were the first animal advocacy group that I was lucky enough to discover. When I first learned about you and the work you do on behalf of animals globally — I knew I had found my people. You fearlessly expose the harsh realities of animal cruelty and prove just how powerful animal lovers can be when they organize and take action. I am honored to be recognized by an organization that I’ve admired so much for so long.” 

Unfortunately, PETA doesn’t say what comes along with Coolidge’s new title, but we have a few suggestions: Beyond Burger spokesperson, a cosmetics line with e.l.f cosmetics, and finally that role of her dreams, a dolphin. Maybe even a Lisa Frank dolphin, at that.