Celebrities are often known for their hardcore and/or eccentric diets, taken on either in the name of good health or in joining the fight to end animal cruelty. So what about this world-famous actor?
Hugh Grant is not vegan, and neither is his wife, Anna Eberstein. There is no evidence to support that Hugh Grant or any of his partners were ever vegan, though he has followed strict diets in the past.
Read on to find out about the origin of the curiosity around Grant’s diet, what he actually eats, and his shared interests with vegan activists.
Notting Hill’s Fruitarians
Both Hugh Grant and vegan sausage rolls show up on Piers Morgan’s most hated list, established in one of Morgan’s tweets from 2019. While that is where the similarities between Grant and eating vegan end, curiosity about Grant’s eating habits arose long before Morgan’s list.
Questions about Grant’s diet may have come from one particular scene from the beloved movie Notting Hill, which came out in 1999. In this modern-day fairytale, Grant plays William Thacker, a British bookstore owner, with Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, a renowned Hollywood actress. The movie follows the two falling in love despite their entirely incompatible ways of life.
The scene in question, in which Grant’s character goes on a blind date with a woman who, he learns, is a fruitarian. As she explains, “we [fruitarians] believe that fruits and vegetables have feelings, so we think cooking is cruel. We only eat things that have actually fallen from the tree or bush–that are, in fact, dead already.”
This comedic portrayal of fruitarians spurred many viewers to ask the same question– what is Hugh Grant’s actual diet?
Clean Eating
As an esteemed actor featured in mainly romantic comedies, Grant usually plays the main character or the main character’s love interest in movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and the aforementioned Notting Hill. To keep fit and trim, Grant has followed various diets over the years.
Born and raised in London, Grant doesn’t seem to want to leave, especially not after his and Eberstein’s recent purchase of London property for them and their family. London restaurants have become more and more inclined to provide vegan choices in the past years–enough to become “the world’s most vegan-friendly city,” as outlined by this CNBC article–boasting more than 150 completely vegan restaurants in 2019.
While there may be many plant-based options in London, Grant has instead followed the low-sugar, clean and lean diet in the past, which does include eating unprocessed or minimally processed meats and hormone-free dairy. The reason why Grant chose clean eating over veganism or similarly plant-based diets is unknown.
Learn more about Dr. Ian Smith’s plan for Clean & Lean eating in a 700 Club Interactive interview in the YouTube video below.
Sustainable Living
Many people go vegan not just for their health, but to raise awareness of the unjust treatment of animals in the meat industry and to reduce the demand for mass-produced meat. While Grant may not be vegan, he shares vegan interests of ending animal cruelty.
In 2016, Grant shared a video from the #TurnYourNoseUp movement on Twitter that was created by Farms Not Factories, a non-profit organization pushing for food sovereignty, or fair and sustainable food production. The video highlights the animal abuse that goes on in factory pig farms.
The movement emphasized celebrities involved and quickly gained a large following across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Not being vegan doesn’t mean that Grant and other celebrities don’t share the same values as many plant-based eaters.
Grant’s not vegan (nor fruitarian, for that matter) but he shares the goal of one day having sustainable, cruelty-free food production.