‘Give a Cluck, Shaq!’: Giant ‘Chickens’ to Appeal to Athlete Turned Restauranteur
As Part of the Super Bowl Wings Rebellion, PETA’s Giant ‘Birds’ and Showgirls Will Give Away Vegan Fried Chicken Outside NBA Champ’s Chicken Restaurants
For Immediate Release:
February 8, 2022
Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382
The chickens have a bone to pick, and they’ve now entered the “chicken wars” with stops at Shaquille O’Neal’s Big Chicken restaurants in Glendale, California, on Tuesday, and Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday, where they’ll be passing out free vegan KFC in a push to get the former basketball superstar to introduce vegan chicken at his eateries. He’d be joining Pinky Cole, Jermaine Dupri, Chris Paul, Colin Kaepernick, John Salley, and so many others in helping people be healthy, humane, and environmentally conscious. PETA has also written to the “Big Diesel,” pointing out that, as a Beyond Meat investor himself, he already knows that vegan chicken is the future, the future is now, and eating vegan gives athletes and others more stamina, in addition to preventing birds from being reduced to Super Bowl “snacks.”
“Until he introduces a vegan option, there’s a Shaq-sized gap on the Big Chicken menu,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “With PETA’s ‘Fight the Bite’ campaign, we hope to sign up customers to the birds’ side of the ‘chicken wars’ and let them keep their wings.”
The giveaways are part of PETA’s “Fight the Bite” campaign—a national effort aimed at slashing the estimated 1 billion chicken wings consumed during the Super Bowl last year. Actions include running an edgy Super Bowl video spot in Las Vegas—because it’s the hometown of Shaq’s Big Chicken—during sports programs the night before the Super Bowl and on NBC and Telemundo during pre-game programming on game day. The 30-second spot uses “security cam” footage to show what happens to diners in various places, from couches to carryouts, when chicken dinners suddenly become living, squawking birds with a bone to pick about being fried for food.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers free vegan starter kits as well as a list of ready-to-heat plant-based wings available at grocery stores and many other easy vegan game day recipes.
For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
