From Rock Legends to Oscar Winners—THESE Celebs Are Helping PETA End Cruel Tests on Animals

Each year in the U.S. alone, experimenters kill more than 111 million animals, including mice, rats, frogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, monkeys, fish, and birds. They’re killed for biology lessons, medical training, curiosity-driven “research,” and for chemical, drug, and food testing.

PETA is working tirelessly to end these cruel, wasteful experiments that do nothing to advance medicine or research. Thanks in part to celebrity campaigns like these, we’re pushing animal testing closer to extinction.

16 Stars Driving Real Change

Massachusetts’ Maternal Separation in Laboratories and Marmoset Experiments

Casey Affleck

Proud Massachusetts native Casey Affleck is deeply opposed to the use of sensitive, socially complex monkeys in pointless and painful experiments.

In 2025, Affleck urged state lawmakers to support a groundbreaking bill (H.1948, S.1167)—introduced by Senator Joan B. Lovely (D-2nd Essex) and Representative Sean Reid (D-11th Essex). The bill would ban tearing infant monkeys away from their mothers for the first year of their life for use in experiments, like those at Harvard, in which  newborns were forced to wear disorienting goggles for 18 months. Following a vigorous PETA campaign, federal funding for those experiments was terminated, but without a law on the books banning such cruel separations, they could happen again.

In 2021, Affleck and his mother joined PETA at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) to demand an end to the school’s painful and invasive menopause experiments on marmosets, a condition that these primates don’t even experience. 

Speak Up for Marmosets!

NIH’S MONKEY TERROR LAB

Kate del Castillo

The Cleaning Lady star Kate del Castillo helped expose the international primate trade in a video for PETA. Del Castillo reveals how hunters trap mother monkeys, tear away their babies, and stuff them into crates headed to U.S. laboratories.

Once they arrive in the U.S., animal experimenters mutilate, poison, starve, forcibly restrain, infect the monkeys with painful diseases, psychologically torment them, and eventually kill them.

Sir Paul McCartney

McCartney donated his song and “Looking for Changes” to PETA’s campaign against NIH’s wasteful $19 billion animal testing budget.

“I’m looking for changes that will continue the momentum of getting animals out of laboratories,” says McCartney. “Experiments on animals are unethical—they’re a colossal failure and a waste of time and money. We can and must do better.”

James Cromwell

Cromwell recorded voicemails for 10,000 NIH employees condemning monkey torture.

Bill Maher

The Real Time With Bill Maher host called bullsh*t on Murray’s NIH experiments, reminding viewers that she torments monkeys using their money.

Iggy Pop

Iggy also donated his hit song “Free” to PETA to help expose suffering monkeys held captive at NIH and other facilities:

Anjelica Huston

Oscar winner Anjelica Huston wrote to then NIH Director Francis Collins, urging him to pursue human-relevant research.

“Studies that are pointless, wasteful, or extremely cruel should be ended now, and that means the emphasis should be placed on non-animal studies, because they offer real promise.”

—Anjelica Huston in a letter to NIH

FORCED SWIM TEST

Davey Havok

AFI frontman Davey Havok—longtime vegan and passionate advocate for animals—joined PETA to slam the widely discredited “forced swim test.” In the test, experimenters drop mice, rats, and other small animals into inescapable containers filled with water. The panicked animals paddle furiously, desperately trying to keep their heads above water. Eventually, they’ll start to float. Experimenters say this test tells us something about the effectiveness of antidepressants, but a study has shown that it’s no more predictive than a coin toss.

“In animal testing that still occurs today, millions and millions of rats and rodents are destroyed for no good reason whatsoever.”

Floriana Lima

Actor Floriana Lima was a superhero for animals by speaking out against the forced swim test.

VICTORY! After discussions with PETA, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, AbbVie, Roche, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk A/S, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, and other companies all announced that they would no longer conduct or fund this test.

COSMETICS TESTING

Sir Paul McCartney

An advocate for cruelty-free shopping, Sir Paul McCartney has backed the Save Cruelty-Free Cosmetics initiative across Europe to end painful experiments on mice, fish, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, dogs, and monkeys.

Sofía Sisniega

The La Casa de las Flores star Sofía Sisniega stripped down for a good cause, joining PETA Latino to encourage shoppers to keep all products tested on animals off their shopping lists.

Dave Navarro

Musician Dave Navarro is known for his body art, guitar shredding, and iconic rocker look. When he discovered that some companies perform cruel tests on animals, he knew that he had to speak out and urge everyone to buy only cruelty-free products.

BRAIN EXPERIMENTS ON OWLS AT JOHNS HOPKINS

Evanna Lynch

Luna Lovegood herself condemned Johns Hopkins for tormenting barn owls in cruel brain experiments. The longtime vegan also teamed up with PETA to make a new kind of makeup tutorial, showing fans what life for animals in laboratories is really like.

FLIGHT TRAINING ON CATS AND PIGS AT UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Lily Tomlin

The Grace and Frankie star and Detroit native wrote to the University of Michigan (UM) to ask its officials to stop allowing trainees to jam hard tubes down cats’ throats, cut holes into pigs’ throats and chests, and stab needles into the animals’ bones.

Iggy Pop

After the “Godfather of Punk” learned that UM, his alma mater, was abusing and killing cats and pigs, Iggy fired off a letter on PETA’s behalf, urging the university to drop these cruel and archaic experiments on animals.

VICTORY! In 2013, after a yearlong campaign by PETA and supporters like Lily and Iggy, UM ended its use of cats in its Survival Flight intubation training laboratory.

EXCRUCIATING CAT EXPERIMENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN–MADISON

James Cromwell

Cromwell was arrested after storming a UW board meeting to protest cruel brain experiments, in which experimenters mutilated, deafened, starved, and eventually killed cats.

Bill Maher

Maher also spoke out in defense of cats who were tortured in the cruel brain experiments at UW-Madison.

VICTORY! With the help of supporters like Cromwell and Maher, PETA’s steadfast campaign forced this UW laboratory to close its doors in 2015.

TEXAS A&M’S CANINE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY LAB

Lily Tomlin

More than 5,000 Texas A&M faculty and staff heard Tomlin’s plea, “Enough is enough!” urging the university’s former president, Michael K. Young, to end the school’s experiments on dogs.

James Cromwell

James Cromwell was handcuffed once again during a PETA protest at Texas A&M’s Board of Regents meeting. He condemned the university’s experiments on dogs, which had been going on for almost 40 years but did not result in a single treatment that can reverse debilitating MD symptoms in humans.

Bill Maher

The political commentator also called Texas A&M “dogs’ worst enemy” for its canine MD laboratory.

Casey Affleck

In addition to filming a public service announcement calling out the school, the devoted dog guardian also filmed a video with an adorable rescued dog and spoke lovingly about his own companion, Bella.

Richard Linklater

Award-winning director and lifelong Texan Richard Linklater sent a letter on PETA’s behalf, urging Texas A&M to end its canine MD experiments. “There’s no doubt in my mind that a cure must be found for MD, but these experiments are purposefully bringing dogs into the world in order to subject them to a shortened life of pain, misery, and neglect,” wrote the Boyhood filmmaker.

Nikki Sixx

The dogs at Texas A&M have also received support from Mötley Crüe cofounder and bassist Nikki Sixx, who sent a letter to the university’s president stating his opposition to subjecting “man’s best friend” to a life of suffering.

Ryan Tannehill

The Tennessee Titans quarterback sent a letter to his alma mater, Texas A&M, urging it to end its cruel experiments on dogs. He pointed to the “heartbreaking” eyewitness video footage obtained by PETA that shows dogs who were deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of canine MD.

VICTORY! In 2019, Texas A&M bowed to pressure from PETA and these kind stars, ending its MD laboratory dog-breeding program and eventually finding homes for more than 50 dogs.

MODERNIZING RESEARCH

Kevin Nealon

Two minutes—that’s all the time actor and Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon needs to debunk pseudoscience and make the case against testing on animals.

One more time for the people in the back: Animals aren’t laboratory equipment. Please join the efforts of these celebrities and PETA to help end testing on animals by sharing this article with your family, friends, and followers.

More Ways to Take Action

If you’re in the U.S., please support PETA’s Research Modernization NOW, our trailblazing initiative that outlines a roadmap for replacing cruel, ineffective tests on animals with state-of-the-art methods.

Help PETA Modernize Research