Beyoncé: This “vegan” wears furs
Beyoncé plugged her new business, a vegan food delivery service, on Good Morning America yesterday and from the clip, we learned that veganism is a weight loss and skin firming diet that Beyoncé is seeking to monetize with her brand. Near the end of the clip, GMA’s cast members ridicule the dishes they sample and make jokes about barbeques. It was cringe-worthy. Vegan web sites hurriedly put up a cheery headline: “She’s a vegan now!” they giddily exclaimed. No, she’s not. Not yet, anyway, and far from it.
Beyoncé is a business woman callously draped in dead foxes, minks and lynxes, expanding her and her husband’s billion-dollar empire by masquerading as a vegan.
Beyoncé’s veganism (she’s calling it hers, as in “my veganism”) might be ready for prime time TV but for millions of genuine vegans, this branded, monetized and photo-shopped version of veganism demands a closer look.
To many animal rights activists, Beyoncé is a “fur hag selling vegetables.” To those who march the streets protesting animal cruelty, profiting from a diet trend does not give her the moral authority nor the right to copyright healthy eating and claiming it “her veganism.” No matter how hard PETA tries to educate her publicly, Beyoncé doesn’t seem to want to comprehend the most salient point of veganism — that it isn’t a diet, it isn’t a trend, and it’s not a business opportunity. You cannot be a little bit vegan, just like you cannot be a little bit pregnant. Veganism is an ethic.
You can’t brand a social justice movement
Beyoncé isn’t merely pretending to be a vegan; she is actually demeaning a social justice movement. She profits from shoes made from pythons, sharks, stingrays and elephants. Every time this text-book narcissist is seen, she is proudly wearing dead minks, sables, foxes, chinchillas, lynxes and baby lambs. She rides baby elephants and has baby tigers entertain her at parties. She rides camels. She carries her money in $60,000 dead crocodile skins.
This woman is such a megalomaniac, she has the grandiosity to believe that by her celebrity alone, she can mold a global environmental and social justice movement into a profitable food delivery pyramid biz. As if her billion dollars isn’t enough. But, as she clearly states, “my weight came off and my skin feels tighter now.” But what about the skins of sharks, stingrays, pythons, elephants and ostriches she sells as shoes? Have vegans forsaken them or are they weighing those lives as less important than the potential lives saved of pigs, cows and chickens if she is able, wearing a fur coat, and elephant trainers, to convince people to lose weight by buying her vegan products?
If you think “her veganism” means fewer animals will be killed, then you must also believe that every time she poses with an alligator bag, wearing fur, that means more will be animals killed. The logic doesn’t hold water, now does it? Hold out your arms as a scale and imagine an elephant skin in one hand and a pig skin in another. Which animal is more worthy of fighting for? If she is not promoting the killing of pigs but still promoting the killing of elephants, pythons, chinchillas, foxes, minks and sharks, how many animals is she saving with her mere presence as a celebrity? So what is the ultimate influence of her celebrity? If you think as a vegan, that she is saving pigs, then you must believe that as a fashion icon, she is killing many other animals. So for the sake of a chicken, you’ll throw an elephant under the bus?
Is this really the way we want to advance our very serious environmental and animal rights movement? Why are we elevating this narcissist, sanctifying her as if she had the slightest intention of saving any animals? She is doing this for her looks and for her bank holdings. Don’t harbor any illusions.
By calling herself a vegan she is only conning the public into thinking she has the moral authority of a true vegan, and in so doing, attempting to give a patina of respectability to her money-grubbing.
Why are so many vegans celebrating this charade?
Are we supposed to celebrate anybody who claims to be vegan just because they’re famous? What if Isis gave up meat and dairy? Are we supposed to be thrilled? They’re famous and have a lot of influence with millions of people. They could do some real good for animals, right? If they switched to Beyoncé’s “power-snacks” between beheadings.
People who understand the health benefits of a plant-based diet will buy their vegetables at their farmer’s market, not from a hypocrite so tone deaf, she wears a dead fox to Café Gratitude.
Her business is a pyramid scheme. She can sit back and rake in the money while others do the work for her, selling her product.
Vegans, did you know about Beyoncé’s and Jay Z’s greedy charity scam? In 2010, Jay-Z reportedly donated only $6,431 of his $63 million earnings to his own Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund, and out of the $87 million Beyoncé earned in 2010, zilch was given to her husband’s foundation.
And it’s not the first time Beyoncé and Jay Z have attempted to profit from a social justice cause. Remember their incredibly greedy “Occupy Wall Street” tee shirt business where not one penny was given to the anti-corporate greed activists? That is a slap in the face to those who have suffered at the hands of predator Banksters. Beyoncé and Jay Z were actually making money off of people who lost their homes.
I’m not the only social justice activist calling Beyoncé out on her lack of integrity. Harry Belafonte, iconic entertainer and civil rights activist accused her and her husband of turning their backs on social responsibility.
It really amazes me how many tepid, feeble vegans are out there promoting this narcissist who makes money selling dead animal skins. People can learn about eating a plant-based diet without a billionaire who sells dead elephants as shoes. Veganism is doing well on its own, growing every day without celebrity profiteers.
Celebrities profit from trends, not the other way around. Veganism is the new chic. Who made it chic? We did. We are a global movement. Look at us. The healthiest, most stylish, knowledgeable, ethically effective, environmentally-conscious humans on the planet. We are real. We are making the world cleaner, safer and more just, millions of us. Not because it’s trendy, but because it is the right thing to do. This is a social justice movement. This is the social justice movement of our time.
Real vegans who are celebrities do not behave like Beyoncé. Think of Moby. Morrissey. Imagine they were selling ostrich and python skin sneakers and wore a dead fox on stage. Would you be ecstatic about their veganism on the Good Morning America Show? No. So why are vegans fawning all over this callous singer? Why are vegans genuflecting at the altar of celebrity? Are we this star-fucking desperate? We wouldn’t accept this behavior from any of our peers. We’re better than that, smarter than that and this movement is marching forward without fake vegans like Beyoncé.
She can kiss my vegan ass.
