"End speciesism now!" Joan Jett lends her voice to hard-hitting PETA campaign slamming the meat, egg, and dairy industries

Joan Jett and a cow
(Image credit: PETA)

Joan Jett has lent her voice to a campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), slamming practices in the meat, egg, and dairy industries.

In the ad, which premiered on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, Jett shines a light on the treatment of female animals before morphing into a cat, with further transformations taking place as the ad progresses.

"We are daughters, sisters and mothers," says Jett. "We all feel pain and fear and love, and if any of us were forcibly bred or had our breast milk or eggs taken and sold, or our children stolen from us to be experimented on, we'd all feel violated and angry and heartbroken.

"Ask yourself: 'Would I wish this fate on my mother or my sister or me?' We are all sisters under the skin. End speciesism."

In a typically hard-hitting statement headlined 'Real Feminists Support Animal Rights!', PETA detail some of the industry practices that inspired Jett's voiceover.

Jett has enjoyed a long association with PETA. In 2006 she joined them in campaigning against Ringling Bros. Circus for alleged abuse of circus elephants, and, more recently, she took SeaWorld to task for their alleged sexual abuse of animals.

In 2022, her campaigning was recognised when Los Angeles pizza chain Piizanista! launched a limited-edition Joan Jett x PETA pie with a black heart-shaped crust – in tribute to Jett's band The Blackhearts.

The same year, Jett told the non-profit organisation Cleary Veg that she was close to embracing a vegan lifestyle, saying, "I’m not judging anyone else’s path, but to me I might as well be putting my cat on a dinner plate.

"To me, there’s no difference (between that) or my grandmother, or for that matter, a baby – baby meat is very tender, just ask the veal and the lamb. Where do you draw the line?"

Feminist Icon and Rock Legend Joan Jett: ‘We Are All Sisters Under the Skin’ - YouTube Feminist Icon and Rock Legend Joan Jett: ‘We Are All Sisters Under the Skin’ - YouTube
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Fraser Lewry

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 38 years in music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.