Dan Mathews (born October 24, 1964) is the senior vice president of
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; ) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president.
Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and animal rights ...
. He is known for creating PETA's most newsworthy campaigns, including the "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" ads, as well as campaigns involving celebrities such as
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae Baldwin III (born April 3, 1958) is an American actor and film producer. He is known for his leading and supporting roles in a variety of genres, from comedy to drama. He has received List of awards and nominations received by A ...
,
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson (born July 1, 1967) is a Canadian-American actress, model and media personality. She rose to prominence after being selected as the February 1990 ''Playboy'' Playmate of the Month. She went on to make regular appearan ...
,
Pink
Pink is a pale tint of red, the color of the Dianthus plumarius, pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, p ...
, and
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...
. He has been profiled by the NY Times, USA Today, and Wall St. Journal and has lectured on animal rights and veganism at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Oxford and Cambridge.
Mathews is best known for heading PETA's successful fashion campaigns, having persuaded designers like Michael Kors and Calvin Klein to stop using fur, and working with Tim Gunn to promote animal-free materials at Fashion Week events and through programs at the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). In 2020, Mathews convinced Tommy Hilfiger to ban exotic animal skins after reports showed that the wild animal trade posed risks to spawning zoonotic diseases like COVID-19.
In 2000, Mathews was named by gay lifestyle magazine ''
Genre
Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
'' as one of the most influential people of the new millennium, and in 2007, Mathews was ranked 37th in ''Out'' magazine's "50 Most Powerful Gay Men and Women in America".
[Oxfield, Jesse, Idov, Michael (March 4, 2007)]
'Out' Ranks the Top 50 Gays; Anderson Is No. 2
, ''New York Magazine''. Retrieved June 28, 2007.
Mathews has written two acclaimed memoirs published by Atria/
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...
. ''Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir'' was published in the US and Australia in 2007, and in the UK, Italy, Germany and France over the following decade. "Committed is a bold, offbeat globe-trotting memoir that shows how the most ridiculed punching bag in high school became an internationally renowned crusader for the most downtrodden individuals of all - animals". ''Like Crazy: Life with my Mother and her Invisible Friends'' was published in 2020. In this book, Mathews writes about caring for his clever, schizophrenic mother in her last years. In a starred review,
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
wrote "Mathews conveys potentially heavy and gut-wrenching family crises with page-turning style and heaps of wit." In 2021, Jeopardy host and neurologist
Mayim Bialik
Mayim Chaya Bialik ( ; born December 12, 1975) is an American actress, author, and former game show host. From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom ''Blossom (American TV series), Blossom''. From 2010 to 2019, she play ...
featured Mathews on her mental health podcast Bialik's Breakdown to launch the paperback edition of "Like Crazy".
See also
*
List of animal rights advocates
Advocates of animal rights believe that many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as in avoiding suffering—should be afforded ...
Bibliography
* ''Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir'', 2007
* ''Like Crazy: Life with my Mother and her Invisible Friends'', 2020
References
External links
Dan Mathewsin conversation with Richard Fidler (audio available)
MikeyPodpodcast interview with Dan Matthews.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathews, Dan
1964 births
21st-century American LGBTQ people
American animal rights activists
American University alumni
American veganism activists
LGBTQ people from California
Living people
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals personnel