He’s up for six Grammys, but there’s one award Harry Styles has already got in the bag. The multi-platinum-selling artist is now the proud recipient of a Libby Award from the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He beat out Bella Hadid, Jimmy Fallon, and Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker in the category of Best Viral Moment For Animals.
You may recall that during Styles’s 15-night residency at Madison Square Garden in New York City this summer, a fan hurled a chicken nugget at the singer and actor during one of his performances. (I guess someone thought he looked hungry.) Styles, wearing light blue pants with pink circles and a matching tank top, seemed mostly-amused by the unusual interruption. But when the audience began chanting for him to eat the gifted nug, he reminded the crowd that he does not eat meat.
He was far from condescending about it, considering how he tossed the (then-cold) food item back to the fan and said, “we’ll get you another nugget,” when it fell to the floor. It’s all very charming!
Elsewhere at the Libbys (which is short for “liberation”), Daisy Ridley won an award for Favorite PETA Collab in honor of her call to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to end experimentation on marmosets. She became aware of the issue when she learned that the animals who were later killed were given Star Wars names in the lab, including that of her own character, Rey. The scientists used the small monkeys for research into menopause and had their ovaries removed.
The University responded in mid-October, saying that all research adhered to federal and state laws and the “highest ethical standards.” A campus spokesperson also added that “animal research has contributed to many of the medical advances we now know today, including vaccines, antibiotics, anesthesia and medicines used to treat serious conditions.”
Other Libby highlights included tennis champ Venus Williams winning Best Vegan Brand for her Happy Viking protein shakes, beating out Hailey Bieber, Kevin Hart, and the Jonas Brothers. This year’s Pawsome Adoption Advocate prize (for a celeb who works to encourage animal adoption) went to Nicola Peltz Beckham. She out-wagged Drew Barrymore, Janel Parrish, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Additional Libby Awards went to products that eschew the use of animals, like Beyond Meat, Crocs, and vegan makeup products.
Harry Styles’s meat-free days were first confirmed in 2020, though he does still eat dairy, and, occasionally, fish. In 2015, not long after the release of the documentary film Blackfish, Styles, then part of One Direction, told a San Diego crowd not to go to Sea World.