'Tis the season for awards and accolades, and one person everyone is talking about is Glee star and PETA supporter Lea Michele. For her dedicated work with PETA to end animals' suffering, Lea was one of the Lifetime Impact Honorees at Variety magazine's annual Power of Women event. In her acceptance speech, Lea highlighted the cause closest to her heart—horse-drawn carriages. Watch her moving speech, which you can only see here on The PETA Files, and learn about her journey and activism with PETA: 

Lea narrated a shocking undercover video, which has shown countless people how horses suffer when they are forced to pull heavy carriages all day long in all weather extremes on busy city streets. In the past month alone, three horses have been involved in accidents, including a horse named Charlie, who collapsed in the street and died. Lea promptly fired off a letter urging Mayor Bloomberg to end carriage rides.

An auction organized as part of the Power of Women is helping raise funds for the honorees' selected nonprofits. Check out (and bid on) the custom-designed dress Lea wore to this year's Met Gala that she donated to benefit PETA.

 

Written by Heather Faraid Drennan

Lea Michele is no stranger to accolades, with Golden Globe and Emmy Award nods for her role on Glee. And today, Variety magazine is honoring Lea at its third annual Power of Women luncheon for her off-screen role working with PETA as a powerful advocate for animals.

Lea Michele ©Jeff Kravitz/ FilmMagic

Thanks to Lea, PETA representatives will be there, too, putting our message in front of Variety's 450 guests with a booth where we will hand out vegetarian/vegan starter kits, "Glass Walls" DVDs, tote bags, and shirts.

We've been fans of Lea since back when she was conquering the Great White Way and speaking out about the unattractive side of New York—the cruel horse-drawn carriage industry.

Now that Glee has made Lea a household name, she always uses her celebrity status to promote animal rights—from denouncing fur to singing the praises of a vegan diet. Her Twitter feed is always alight with animal-friendly suggestions sent to her 1.1 million followers.

Congratulations, Lea. You inspire us to keep striving to save animals' lives every day.

 

Written by Michelle Sherrow

This ad, along with details on a hotline that whistleblowers who witness abuse on movie sets can call, appeared in Variety magazine this week

A while back a whistleblower from the set of Speed Racer reported that one of the chimpanzees used to play Speed Racer’s sidekick, Chim Chim, was beaten during filming and bit a human actor. The Speed Racer movie is coming out next week, and while the industry’s fleeting attention is attuned to the issue of animal abuse in Hollywood—especially after a bear used in the recent Will Ferrell movie attacked and killed his trainer—we figured now was the perfect time to encourage Hollywood insiders to speak up when they see abuse. Because nobody else is doing it right now.

A full-page ad prominently placed in yesterday's Variety magazine calls on Hollywood insiders who witness or suspect animal abuse in the production of a movie to immediately report the incident to PETA via a special hotline. Here’s what PETA Director Debbie Leahy told the media:

The story’s been making its way around the blogosphere today. There’s a good write-up on Deadline Hollywood Daily, and there’s tons more info on our campaign to prevent animals from being abused behind the scenes in movies and on TV on our cleverly titled “No More Monkey Business” website.

P.S. Check out the sweet article about the issue on HuffPo.

P.P.S. You can tell Warner Bros. that you’re boycotting their Speed Racer movie through this webform.