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Is Natalie Portman Vegan? Yes, and She Calls It Basic Empathy

One book turned Natalie Portman from 20-year vegetarian into one of Hollywood's clearest vegan voices. Her story, her 2025 statements and the honest pregnancy footnote.

Yannick Haldenwanger

By Yannick Haldenwanger

4 min read

Natalie Portman vegan check banner
Natalie Portman for This Is Vegan's vegan check

Some people go vegan because of a documentary. Natalie Portman went vegan because of a book, which is the most Natalie Portman thing imaginable.

She had already been vegetarian for two decades, since age 9. Then in 2011 she read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, and the remaining dairy and eggs didn’t survive the final chapter. She didn’t just adopt the book’s argument, she eventually produced and narrated the documentary adaptation in 2018. When Portman commits to source material, she commits.

QUICK ANSWER

Yes, Natalie Portman is vegan, and has been since 2011. In 2025 she called veganism “basic empathy” on a conference stage and invested in the vegan leather company UNCAGED Innovations. One honest footnote: during her 2011 pregnancy she temporarily ate vegetarian again, then returned to vegan.

Last fact-checked: July 7, 2026

Contents6 chapters
  1. 01Three meals, three reminders
  2. 02The vegan timeline, tap to expand
  3. 03The pregnancy footnote, handled honestly
  4. 04Fact or fiction?
  5. 05Quiz: how well do you know vegan Natalie?
  6. 06Is Natalie Portman still vegan in 2026?

Three meals, three reminders

Portman has one of the most quotable explanations for why food is where her values live, via PETA:

“Eating for me is how you proclaim your beliefs three times a day. Three times a day, I remind myself that I value life and do not want to cause pain to or kill other living beings.”

And in April 2025, closing the ChangeNOW conference in Paris, she compressed it further, calling veganism “basic empathy”: something she understood as a child, seeing animals as beings like herself. Twenty-seven years of Hollywood cynicism apparently couldn’t dent a nine-year-old’s logic.

The vegan timeline, tap to expand

Around 1990: vegetarian at age 9
Meat is out before she’s in middle school, and stays out.
2007: the vegan shoe line
She launches a leather-free designer shoe collection with Te Casan, years before vegan fashion was a category anyone invested in.
2011: Eating Animals ends the vegetarian era
Foer’s book converts her to vegan at 30. The same year, during her pregnancy, she temporarily returns to vegetarian (eggs and dairy cravings, openly discussed), then goes back to vegan.
2018: produces the Eating Animals documentary
She turns the book that converted her into a film, and narrates it herself.
2019: the WE Day speech
She connects the dairy and egg industries to the exploitation of female bodies, one of the more pointed feminist framings of veganism from any A-lister.
2025: money into vegan leather
She joins UNCAGED Innovations, a grain-based leather startup, as investor and strategic partner: “As a vegan, I’ve spent years advocating for animals, and teaming up with Uncaged allows me to amplify that mission.”
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The pregnancy footnote, handled honestly

In 2011, while pregnant, Portman said she’d gone back to vegetarian, craving eggs and dairy. Some corners of the internet still cite this as “Natalie Portman quit veganism”. She didn’t. She was transparent about a temporary shift during pregnancy and returned to fully vegan afterwards, where she’s stayed for well over a decade. If anything, the episode makes her one of the more credible celebrity vegans: no image management, just honesty.

By late 2025, PETA was referring to her as a longtime vegan of 15 years. The UNCAGED investment suggests the next 15 are already planned.

Fact or fiction?

A documentary made her go vegan. Fact or fiction?
Fiction. It was a book, Eating Animals. She later made the documentary herself.
She launched vegan shoes before veganism was trendy. Fact or fiction?
Fact. 2007, with Te Casan. Beyond Meat wouldn’t even be founded for another two years.
She has been vegetarian or vegan for over 35 years. Fact or fiction?
Fact. Vegetarian since about 1990, vegan since 2011. The streak is older than some of her co-stars.

Quiz: how well do you know vegan Natalie?

Five questions, no cheating

1. How old was she when she stopped eating meat?

2. Which book turned her vegan in 2011?

3. What did she call veganism in 2025?

4. What did she launch in 2007?

5. What is UNCAGED Innovations, her 2025 investment?

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Is Natalie Portman still vegan in 2026?

Yes. The 2025 evidence alone settles it: the “basic empathy” statement at ChangeNOW, the UNCAGED Innovations investment, PETA’s ongoing references to her as a longtime vegan. This is a settled identity, not a phase.

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Photo: European Union / Corey Sipkin, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons