MISSION TO STOP ANIMAL CRUELTY
practices rather than being faced with vegan ethics from the off.
He explains: “You’ve got to do it gradually. I don’t come out and say, ‘stop eating meat altogether, no one should ever eat meat, if you ever eat meat or drink milk, you’re a maniac, you’re terrible, you’re a murderer.’ If I do, I’ll lose 80% of people.
“I say, ‘let’s stop mindless torture first – things like bullfighting’. It takes a long time, it’s a juggernaut.”
One thing he refuses to hold back on is the trophy hunters.
We revealed in August how one biggame hunter had fitted a Go-pro camera to a spear and filmed as he lured a 7ft black bear and slaughtered it, before celebrating with a selfie.
We also uncovered a 12-year-old hunter – Aryanna Gourdin, the daughter of a convicted poacher – who proudly displayed the corpse of a defenceless giraffe she had slain.
The stories followed global outrage when dentist Walter Palmer slaughtered Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe, having reportedly paid £45,000 for the privilege.
But Ricky had already been passionately lashing out at trophy hunters – including, Rebecca Francis, who posed lying beside her “trophy” dead giraffe. “I’m anti-hunting,” he states, as his Twitter followers will already be aware. “I’m anti-hunter. There’s no need for it.
“I’m anti-people who go out and see what they can do with a crossbow and a giraffe’s head, because there’s something wrong with them.
“Why the selfie? I don’t get annoyed about a lion eating an antelope because that’s what it does, but what they don’t do is eat an antelope – for a laugh – and then take a selfie with it.”
Ricky also thinks China’s Yulin dog meat festival is “psychopathic”. Last year, the Humane Society International named a puppy rescued from imminent death ahead of the festival Ricky, after the comedian backed its appeal to abolish the cruel event, where it is claimed dogs are boiled alive.
In June, we reported on footage of the dogs being bludgeoned to death ahead of the festival, with their hairs being burned off with a blowtorch. Activists told us they shot the disturbing images at an unlicensed slaughterhouse – 11 million protestors signed a petition to end the annual ritual.
In August, The Mirror published images of a terrified greyhound being lowered into a boiling pot of water as it suffered what activists described as “the worst death imaginable” in a busy Chinese market. Animal-rights group Fight Dog Meat released them in an effort to pressure the Chinese Government into introducing anti-cruelty laws.
Ricky is adamant his problem is with the cruelty inflicted on the dogs – rather than meat being from animals not eaten by Westerners.
“It’s about torture,” he insists. “They skin them alive and blowtorch them because they think the meat tastes better.
“Now, I don’t care whether you’re a meat eater or not – that’s psychopathic. Nobody needs their meat to be tortured first – no militant steak eater wants to know you tortured the cow first, so these are f***ing crazy people. I’d rather nobody ate any animal,
Now, the Mirror are the best at tackling animal cruelty
RICKY GERVAIS ON MIRROR CAMPAIGNS but let’s do it in the right order, because you’ll get a backlash.
“It’s not about species – eat dogs, don’t torture them first. Then let’s get on to not eating dogs.”
Ricky admits he is a reformed meat eater, who follows a predominantly vegetarian diet, but is slowly trying to convert to veganism and give up animal products entirely.
“I eat some fish, but very rarely,” he confesses. “That’s been a slow process.
“I stopped eating cows years ago, and all I ate was chicken and fish. I’m not going to get on my high horse, because I did used to eat red meat and I’m still not a vegan, but it’s going that way.
“I think the world should be going towards veganism and all you have to be is slightly better than you were yesterday. Even when I’m a vegan, I still don’t want to shout down people who eat the odd bit of chicken, because I want them on my side to stop people wiping out rhinos and torturing bulls and eating pilot whales.
“Gradually, people will start seeing how beautiful a cow is. Most people don’t know what an abattoir is like – we’ve got to educate. If abattoirs had glass walls, nobody would eat meat.”
But Ricky insists he is not about to start forcing veganism upon his followers. “Vegans are great, they’re amazing – but there’s a difference between torturing a beautiful intelligent animal like a pig and eating a bug. That bug doesn’t know it’s being eaten.
“I wouldn’t have a problem with the world eating ants – I do have a problem with them torturing an intelligent animal. Even veganism doesn’t solve everything – palm oil is killing things.
“But it’s a level and it is better to be a vegan than a bullfighter. Everything is in between that.”
Ricky and his partner of over 30 years, author Jane Fallon, 56, own just one cat and he laments that his constant travelling will not allow him to have a dog.
After a summer of film premieres around the country to promote his David Brent film Life On The Road, next year, he will head to the States to promote it over there.
He says: “I think I want to retire knowing I’ll never travel again and both our last 15 years will be together – me and a dog. That will be perfect.”
David Brent Life On The Road is out on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Download now. The David Brent Songbook is also out now.