Simone Reyes

Photo: Simone Reyes www.simonereyes.com

When we spoke to the “(You’re My) Happy Hour” singer, we thought we would ask about her country music career. Maybe chat a bit about what it’s like being “the boss” to mogul Russell Simmons. Or maybe how many Popular Science magazines her friend MCA had to light on fire in the “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” video. But it became apparent quickly, that Simone reyes identifies as a vegan and animal rights activist. She found us an hour to talk.

Editors Note: Bridget noted that after their discussion, Simone wondered aloud if her raw, honest talk about the realities of veganism would be too much. “She said maybe I should edit out some of her real feelings so that others aren’t offended. To which I reminded her that we have no intentions of editing you to make me feel better.”

Trigger warning: There is discussion of animal cruelty. Please take care while reading.

Living Crue: Anybody who knows you knows you have so many different identities. There’s Simone, Russell Simmons’ right hand. There’s Simone the country music star. There’s Simone the author. There’s Simone the vegan. The show producer. Where did it all start? Can we start in Manhattan?

Simone: Yes, I’m from Greenwich Village. I grew up in, I don’t want to say, in a “hippy community,” but [it was] in a lot of ways. I went to P.S. 41 and that school was so wonderful because it is smack in the middle of Greenwich Village and it was a melting pot, and so was my apartment building. So from a very young age, thank God, I was exposed to every nationality in the school and also in my apartment building. Being in the village, I knew I had an understanding of what homosexuality was at a very young age. When it’s presented as something that’s completely part of your community, you don’t really question it at all or think that other people might find it offensive or weird or anything like that. It’s just completely normal, and so for that, I’m so grateful for growing up in that incredibly wonderful community, completely accepting. And so, actually, when I hear people homeschooling, I get a little nervous because I think if I had been homeschooled in so many ways, I would have missed out on just, you know, the wonderment, the incredible experience of getting to know so many different people from so many different nationalities and walks of life. I’m a huge advocate of the public school system. Of course, in a lot of ways it can be made better and safer, for sure, but I wouldn’t have traded that for anything in the world.

It’s funny because I look back now; I grew up in the age of the Son of Sam when New York was considered one of the most dangerous, if not THE most dangerous place to live. I was held up, actually, at the age of 13, with a gun. We were riding the trains by ourselves, sometimes to school, under the age of 14. I mean, my friends would all come on the train from the Upper West Side. We didn’t even think about it. I think when Etan Patz was abducted in Tribeca, that was a huge wake-up call. I think a lot of parents thought, there are so many people around what could possibly happen? There are so many people everywhere in New York. You go out at 4:00 in the morning and you’re not alone. Delis are open, nightclubs are open, and the city is alive at all hours. But I think that made a lot of parents say, “Oh my God, these abductions don’t just happen in rural communities, they can happen right here.”

What do you think when you see a 14-year-old in the city now?

No, and I honestly don’t even know how we got around because I was a club kid. I went to my first club at 14. I was allowed to go to nightclubs throughout my entire high school as long as I kept my grades up. All of my friends did. Some of my friends used to go to the nightclub to do their homework before they opened and then just be there when it opened. I don’t know how we all found each other, though, because we didn’t have cell phones and we didn’t have any way to reach each other. Now, you know, in some ways I think that people growing up now are a lot more insulated. I think the internet is an incredible tool, especially for activism and for connecting people, but I think in a lot of ways it disconnects people. It makes people feel—and certainly, children feel—a lot more comfortable just speaking to people they don’t know personally, which is dangerous, and just sort of living in the world of their devices. I wonder if they’re going to be able to really communicate as effectively by not having that real one-on-one [connection] that we had? We spoke on the phone. Kids nowadays? I mean, you see them texting each other in the same room.

Growing up in the city the way you did, I think you had an awareness about what’s around you that gets lost when you have your face in your phone all the time. So, you’ve come from a wonderful community, you’ve lived an independent, somewhat autonomous life as a young woman, and you’re in this nightclub world. Is that when you met Russell Simmons?

Yeah, yeah, I met him through my connections with the nightclub scene. I am friends with the Beastie Boys and we all kind of just ran together. You know New York kids. We were all at the same nightclubs. Most of us went to the same schools. It was just sort of like, that’s how I met him. I was really good friends with Rick Rubin's girlfriend,—[Rick] is arguably one of the best producers in the world—and she was just sort of like, “Def Jam is opening on Elizabeth Street and they need a receptionist.” I’d been going to college at night and then working at Tower Records, which was also a hub of excitement. And all of the time that I’d been working there I just knew I didn’t want to stay in retail. That wasn’t something that I ever wanted to do, was just a way to make extra money and to sort of be around the music business in some way. And then I just became a receptionist over at Def Jam.

How does it work that you were at Russell Simmons’ label, working in that world, and in your “other” life you are, you know, singing about what Patsy Cline would say to you? How does that happen that you can be in the hip hop world, but also the country music world?

I mean honestly, I just think I’m a rebel! I think maybe if I’d grown up working for somebody who was classically trained or whatever, then I’d be into punk. Hip hop was, and is, an incredible art form and it’s always been sort of a point of contention between Russell and me. He’s like, “You were raised on hip hop, how are you a country artist?” But even he has said many times: hip hop and country might seem like they are completely separate ends of the spectrum—you can almost say there’s nothing more opposite—but in fact, it’s not true. The reason why hip hop is so provocative and has been so incredibly, immensely popular is that it’s truthful. And whether you like it or not, rappers are poets and they speak from their communities, they speak from their life, their culture, and they speak about what is wrong with it and what they love about it, and what they aspire to. Country music is the same. In country music, you hear about what it’s like to live a country life, what it’s like to live now with tractors and on farms and drinking whiskey, and all of the things that are just culturally similar to what you think, you know. Does every country fan love Trump and do they all vote red? No. And are all hip hop artists gangbangers? Of course not. But a lot of hip hop artists grew up in extreme poverty and grew up in extreme violence, and that was part of their reality at a very young age. That’s very similar to country music. A lot of people grew up in poverty and a lot of people grew up around guns and things like that. So both are telling the story of their experience in a way that is provocative and honest and sometimes hard to digest by the masses.

And so what about the storytelling aspect of country music attracted you?

I mean, it’s just like a movie, right? When I watch a movie, if I can’t relate to it on some level of something that I’ve experienced or something that I feel I’m getting through the screen, it’s not going to resonate with me. I’m not going to even really keep it on. I’m just going to turn to something else and I think that’s the same with songwriting and storytelling. At the end of the day, we all relate to the same common themes of heartbreak and love and jealousy and rage, and whatever. With country music, the artists so beautifully tell the story of their lives but also of their hearts, and that’s just so attractive to me. You know, I love a good song that makes you cry based on the beauty of how authentic it is. Country music is so full of those stories.

If I asked anyone on the street, “Do you know Simone?” I might hear, “Oh yeah, she’s the author” or “she’s the singer” and so on. One of the things that people call you is the “Gloria Steinem of animal rights.”

That’s a huge compliment! Not one I know I can live up to, but it’s very nice!

But let’s talk about your animal rights activism and being vegan.

I didn’t grow up vegan. Most people don’t. More people do now, but at the time, no, I didn’t. However, my friends and I— Sato, who is still in my life, one of my best friends in the world-–and my other friend, Elizabeth, we started the “I Love Animals Club” in 6th grade and raised money for the Humane Society. At the time, my mother was, and still is, fiercely protective of animals. My father always taught me compassion and kindness. So it was really just about doing the math. People love to say, “I love animals.” People say that all the time and I have to, as an activist, correct them. “Do you love all animals?” They’re like, “Of course I love animals!” And I ask, “What did you have for breakfast today? What did you have for dinner last night?” So, you don’t love all animals. You love domesticated animals, maybe? Or you love an animal that you see in a zoo—which is a prison. But, you don’t love all animals because to love something you have to have respect for them, and you certainly don’t respect an animal that you wear or that you eat. So it’s a very, very hard line that I think we have to draw in the same way that you look at any social justice movement. You don’t have to jump into the fight for groups that are oppressed. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, whether it’s women’s rights, reproductive rights, whatever it is, you don’t have to jump in, but I think it is completely reasonable to ask you not to be a part of the injustice. So, when people eat meat or drink dairy and say that they are a feminist, for example, I take issue with that. I don’t believe you can be a feminist and drink milk, because everything that feminism stands for, which is the right of a mother to have their child or to not have a child, or to be against rape, to be against violence, all of those are everyday practices in the dairy industry. Imagine if a woman were to give birth, a human woman was to give birth, and then she was constantly artificially impregnated so that she could use her breast milk to feed every child in the neighborhood. We’re getting into A Handmaid’s Tale territory. So that’s what they do to animals every day, and then [the animals] don’t even get to raise their animals. We know that cows scream after their babies and run after trucks when those babies are ripped from them. So, I think, people have to really open their hearts and their consciousness so that when they use the word “feminism,” they understand what that means. It shouldn’t just be for female humans, it should be for all females, for all animals.

What is the life of a vegan?

The life of the vegan is simply to do our best, to do no harm. Now, does that mean that we are all perfect? Absolutely not. I once saw a skit—which was meant to be funny and instead it kind of opened up my eyes—on Saturday Night Live and they said, I’m paraphrasing, “A million activists descended on Washington today to fight for animal rights and two billion ants were killed in the process.” Of course we can’t do everything perfectly, but it’s so easy to do so much. You know, we are living in 2022, when meat substitutes are in every major supermarket. It doesn’t matter what city you’re in. They’re in every major supermarket. At this point, Beyond Meat is everywhere. The ImpossibleTM Burger is taking over. You can eat beans and rice and have a completely healthy meal. And there are so many options to be warm. It’s proven that you don’t need to use down or fur, for heaven’s sake, to keep you warm. Some synthetics keep you much warmer. Layering your clothes makes you warmer than wearing a fur coat.

So being vegan just means not using animals for any reason. So the basis is, of course, not using them for food and not wearing them. So, we don’t wear any wool, we don’t wear any silk, we don’t wear any suede or anything leather, and then it goes even further. We don’t give money to institutions and organizations that do animal research. We don’t go to to aquariums. We don’t ride on carriage horses. We don’t go to rodeos. We don’t bet on horses. We don’t use animals for any reason at all. We certainly don’t breed animals for any reason.

I’m the vice president of communications, Social Compassion and Legislation. We passed legislation here in California to ban puppy mills. That means you can’t get an animal that came from a pet shop, that animal has to come from a reputable rescue or a shelter. The truth is, we can function better for our climate, for our consciousness, or overall compassion by not using animals for any reason whatsoever. My cat is in my house and I want nothing from her. She doesn’t have to pay rent, she doesn’t even have to sit on my lap if she doesn’t want to, and she seldom does [laughing]. I don’t want anything from her, and that’s a gift—that she’s here and I feel that way about every animal on the earth. They owe me nothing, nothing.

It sounds like you jumped in right away when you became vegan. Were you a young vegan?

I was in my 20s. I had the blessing, I would say, of joining a group called Activists for Animals. At the time, you know, there was no internet or anything like that. So I had seen a seal hunt on television, on a documentary, and I saw Brigitte Bardot—I tell this story all the time—the seal hunt is one of the hardest things that anybody could ever witness. They’re beautiful, brand-new to the world and they’re with their mothers. To get their fur, they’re beaten to death on the ice. And the ice turns the worst, the worst shade of red. The mother seals are screaming, desperately trying to save their babies. And Brigitte Bardot, who’s been a long-time animal rights activist, was there on the ice and she had her arms wrapped around a baby and she said, “Don’t worry, we’ll get them.”

We have not been able to stop the fur trade. We haven’t been able to stop the—although I’ve come very far—actual seal hunt in Canada. Even with Pamela Anderson and Paul McCartney going to the ice and begging for the lives of these babies. What [Brigitte Bardot] said resonated with me. I was like, “Who’s ‘We’? I want to be part of that army! I want to try to stop them!” The only group that I’d ever heard of that was trying to do anything like that was PETA.

So I called—I think they were in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the time, and I said, “Where can I go?” And they said there was a group and they protest in front of the big department stores for cosmetic testing and they’re outside of the carriage horses and they do vegan demos. I didn’t know what any of that was, but I got their number and I joined them and I showed up to the first protest wearing leather shoes and was at the time was really just trying to fight fur. And instead of being judgmental with me, or saying, “What are you doing?” They just educated me—and the best way that you can educate anybody is by showing them photos and videos of why they need to change the way that they’re living. And it takes a hard-hearted person to watch a video of animals being anally electrocuted or vaginally electrocuted or beaten to death or having their throats slit while they’re still alive, being put into scalding water. It takes somebody, that I can’t imagine who that person would be, to look at that and say, “I’m cool with that.”

I know they’re out there. I know those people are out there. They don’t usually orbit in my world. I’m always happy to teach people. I don’t expect people to be vegan when I meet them, but if they want to learn why they should be vegan and then they still go, “It doesn’t matter to me.” That, to me, is something I can’t get behind. I don’t understand it, I don’t, you know, I guess I don’t respect it because at the end of the day, when you see—when you really see, not just hear about, but when you really see the torture that happens—nobody can really in good conscience be a part of it.

So did you just go to the office the next day and say, “I’m a vegan now.” Because this sounds like a full time job!

It was, but you know you can’t say that to Russell Simmons! [laughing] So, what I did was I brought the activism into the office with me. And if you talked to any of the old Def Jam crew it’s hilarious. They would walk into my office covering theri eyes  because there would be slaughterhouse photos all over my office. I had a doctored-up fur coat—a vintage fur—that I had doctored up and wrote “fur is dead” on it and all this fake blood and stuff. It was hanging in my office. And I would have flyers for everyone. When people join this movement—maybe with any movement, but certainly the animal rights movement—we usually come in really, really hard, like a wrecking ball, and then we learned to dial it back. And so I came in very aggressive, very, very opinionated, very loud, and then over the years, I learned how to dial it back because some people respond well to giant displays of protest and others need to be walked through it. You know, holding their hands and talking softly. And I’m willing to do any of it. You know all of it.

You said in one of your TEDx talks, “It might isolate us from those close to us. It may take our safety and freedom and put us at risk. It may drive us to depths of despair and break our hearts, but it’s worth it.”  Did you experience a lot of isolation? Do you feel isolated still?

You know, most of my friends are in the movement, the ones that aren’t I still have hope that they’ll get there, don’t give up on people. But yes, it’s isolating and uncomfortable. I was in a long-term relationship and he is vegan as well. He would go vegetarian-vegan-vegetarian-vegan. He ended up vegan.

Holidays were always a huge problem. Because sitting there with a big dead bird on the table, you don’t feel very festive. It makes other people uncomfortable, too, because then they start to look at the choices that they’re making and they kind of feel guilty or they feel like maybe they’re going to be attacked in some way. You know, I’ve lost friends over declawing. If I tell you that it’s like taking the fingers off of your cat, if I tell you that it’s going to make them more likely to be aggressive, if I tell you that it’s going to break their hearts and you still go and do it, it’s hard for me to stay close friends with you.

So, I’ve lost friends over it, but for the most part, my circle is very, very strong and very strongly vegan. But I don’t give up on people. And it’s funny: Ingrid Newkirk, who’s kind of like, you know, “all hail the queen”—she co-founded PETA—she’s like, “Don’t date vegans! How are you going to grow the movement if you date a bunch of vegans?” [laughing] Of course you have to be open to dating anyone, but then I think for me, knowing who I am and that it’s probably the most important thing next to my family, my cat included. But I would never say because you’re not vegan, I won’t go out to dinner with you if it could have been a match.

You said that your father was incredibly passionate and your mother is a huge animal lover. So are they your biggest cheerleaders?

My dad passed away during the pandemic.

Oh Simone, I’m so sorry.

Yes. It was terrible. I had to watch his funeral on Zoom. Yeah, just insane, but I couldn’t take the risk of going because I actually had driven across the country to get my mother—who’s in her 80s—and I couldn’t take a plane to go to his funeral and risk bringing COVID back. I just couldn’t risk it. I wasn’t going to lose both of my parents. It was unthinkable to me, so I had to do what I had to do in order to keep my mom safe. But with Dad it was, you know, it was always about compassion. He was just a compassionate man, he was soft-spoken, had a great sense of humor. Always supported my activism. I was grateful when Facebook became a thing and he was, in the last decade of his life, able to watch what my activism meant to me. He would donate to causes that I cared about. And he respected it. That was really important to me. My mom is now vegan and she understands why. I send her dinner every night, so she kind of doesn’t have a choice [laughing]. But she, yes, one of my earliest memories was of her calling the police on a homeless man that was beating his dog. And showing such compassion to our animals growing up and things like that. So, yeah, they both understand and understood why I ended up this way. I don’t think anybody could have imagined I would be as radical or as outspoken or an extremist-–as some people like to call me. I don’t think you can get much more vegan than I am, but I think they understand. I’m never shy about fighting for what’s right.

“When people join this movement ... we usually come in really, really hard, like a wrecking ball. So I came in very aggressive, very, very opinionated, very loud. Over the years, I learned how to dial it back because some people respond well to giant displays of protest and others need to be walked through it. You know, holding their hands and talking softly. And I’m willing to do any of it. You know, all of it.”

When you say you don’t think anybody pictured you being “this” how do you picture yourself now? And as a kid, what did you want to be?

Well, I’m very shy and people find that hard to believe, but there must be some word for it. I’m fine in a crowd, I can speak to a crowd. I can speak on camera. I can go live on CNN, which I’ve done. And of course, I’m nervous but I’m not paralyzed. I speak and I can get through it and I can talk to a room full of people or stadium full of people. That’s not a problem for me. But one-on-one I get super shy. Like at a small dinner party or something. I’m very shy. I couldn’t have imagined that I would have difficult conversations with people, because that was never comfortable for me. However, I always thought I would be, in some way, in the media because that has been comfortable for me. As a really little kid I wanted to be a nurse or a doctor or something like that. But then later I realized that the sight of blood wasn’t attractive to me. And I also hated math. I hated math and I hated science. I knew that whatever I was going to do would involve the other side of my brain and would be more about writing, being more creative. I just knew that in some way I would be in the media but I didn’t really know how. My activism, then writing, and now, singing, which came much later in life. But better late than never, you know?

Yeah! But when do you have time to record all this music and take phone calls to rescue pigs?

It’s true, the music has taken a back seat a little bit because, well, you know. But, I never wanted to get into rescue. I knew that it was too emotionally draining and I knew that if you get into it you’re kind of like sucked in and it takes all your time. And there are so many incredible trench workers that I always marveled at and I always thought that was not for me. I’m the person who will do campaigns and work on legislation and do speaking engagements. That’s what I felt comfortable doing. And then, during the pandemic, shelters took a nose dive. They were closed to the public, animals were not being accepted into shelters. It was a disaster. I had time in quarantine and was at home and I had to try to help. So unfortunately, in some ways—or maybe fortunately in other ways—now people tend to call me when there’s an animal in trouble, a farm animal, particularly a pig. You know, it is so hard to place pigs! I mean it’s nearly impossible. People aren’t zoned for pigs. People don’t have the means to care for a pig. People don’t have the space. It’s really hard. But we’ve been able to even save a bunch of cows who were going to be butchered. I’ve worked on rescues with Diane Warren, the incredible songwriter. I’ve done it on my own. I worked with a friend of mine, Rachel Weil. I always do it with Jane Velez Mitchell from Unchained TV, she’s incredible. And my friend Cindy Brady, she has a sanctuary, and we work together a lot. Terry Crutchfield, my pig guru, from Saving Animals & Healing Hearts. I couldn’t do any of it without her, because, what do I know? What does a city girl who lives in LA know about rescuing pigs? The answer is zero, nothing. And now, because of her training, I’ve been able to handle some of the rescues by myself, understanding what they need, understanding what kind of enclosures they need, understanding how to transport them safely, how much money it costs to take care of them. Without that guidance, I wouldn’t know what I was doing and I’m still learning.

What is next on your bucket list?

I’d like to maybe podcast. Actually, what told me that I should probably do a podcast—if I could ever find the time—is that I listen to podcasts a lot in my car, but I had been just sort of like sitting at home alone with my blind rescue dog, who has since  passed away, and I thought of all the dogs with handicaps–I’ve had blind dogs and deaf dogs, a three-legged dog, and dogs with emotional issues. There’re so many that don’t get adopted at the shelters and I think it’s all based on fear. People think, “How am I going to raise a deaf dog?” “How am I going to deal with a blind dog?” And believe me, it is not easy. But if you have the tools, you can take care of them and they can have these wonderful, incredible lives. Animals do not feel sorry for themselves. They are survivors and if … they have glaucoma or they’ve lost their eyes or for whatever reason, they will find joy in this world. They will find joy in playing with toys that make noise. And if they can’t hear, they’ll use visual cues. And if they’ve got three legs or if they’re paralyzed, they’ll learn to use wheels. They want to live so badly and they don’t just want to live, they want to thrive. And so, I sat and I did a video in my bedroom: “How to live with a blind dog” and I didn’t write anything down, I just thought about it. And I must have done that video, like six years ago or something, and I still get alerts on my phone of people saying, “I watched your video, I was thinking about putting my dog, to sleep because she can’t see any more” and “I’m following some of these steps. You’re right, she can live a good life as long as I’m with her in it.” What a gift to be able to use your own experiences to help other people. And I think podcasts are a great way of just helping people or sharing experiences. And so I feel like maybe somewhere along the line that will be on my list of things to do.

What are you doing these days? What brought you to California?

Well, first of all, just this morning I read that Orange County, here in California, just declared a state of emergency over respiratory viruses in children. I’m like, “Oh my God, is it never-ending. COVID and all of this ever ending.” I mean, a state of emergency is serious. It means the hospitals are overloaded with children. So yeah, I’m still trying to be super careful with COVID. I’ve got five vaccines in me.

But you know, right now I still work for Russell and so he’s always got me busy researching things, writing things, writing books. That’s what I do a lot with him. I’ve got a new song that I’m speaking to my producer, Al Bonhomme, about recording as soon as possible. I’m already thinking about the video for it.

And right now, of course, I’m in the middle of a rescue. My friend Cindy and I, she has a rescue called Tiny Masters, she is incredible, she has so many animals. This pig we rescued is morbidly obese, basically dying at the shelter, and had been one of the worst cases of trauma I have ever encountered. We kind of knew that it was bad. We didn’t know how bad it was. Then we learned that she was only eating one Fig Newton a day at the shelter. She was going to die there. She’s a pig, so should probably weigh, at most, maybe 175 pounds. She’s 500 pounds, 600 pounds, something like that. Cindy is trying to get her to a weight where she can enjoy her life, but not take away her only joy: her food. So Cindy has had to walk that line. Cindy was really smart and realized that she was probably eating only human food and only fried foods. And so, while that’s not good for her obesity, it has opened up the door for her to trust that her new location is safe and to eat food that she enjoys and we’ll incorporate vegetables and start to pull away from the fried foods. But it’s going to take probably a couple of years to get her to where she needs to be.

But it was so heart breaking. You know, pigs are unbelievably smart. They’re smarter than toddlers and they’re smarter than dogs. But what we didn’t realize is how emotional they are. This pig, if you even went close to her, she’s fat blind, which means she’s blind because she’s so fat that it falls over her eyes. So if you even would come within a foot of her, she would sob, scream in terror. A normal-sized pig isn’t helpless. They can charge you, they’ve got teeth and they’ve got their strength. When you have a morbidly obese animal, they can do nothing. So when they’re being abused, it’s like taking a person and putting handcuffs on them and tying them to something and beating them. There’s nothing that can be done. And what would a person in that situation do? They would scream and they would sob, and that’s what she was doing. And so now, to just be able to get her to a point where she grunts and looks forward to her dinner and she doesn’t cry and she’s starting to trust people, it’s such a rewarding gift to be able to give her.

And this is Cindy, who I’ve seen on UnchainedTV? Who put the pig in her laundry room?

Yes! Pig Little Lies the first reality show about pigs. She took the mom and the dad pig that I got out of the shelter that were going to be put down. And now she has 16 piglets. One of them passed away. But then all of the other ones went to her close friends. She had some rescue pigs from the wildlife waystation, but they were farm pigs so they’re around 800 pounds. They’re ginormous. These are potbellies, so they’re not going to get any more than 200 pounds. So she had never had potbellies before. She had never birthed babies before. She birthed them and she actually saved their lives, many of them because a lot of piglets pass away during the the birthing process and a lot of them end up in an amniotic sac. She was able to pull them out and resuscitate them. Once you kind of have that bonding experience with the mother and the babies, it’s really hard to let them go.

What are the most unusual pets—I’m sorry, pets is not the right word—what are the most unusual animals you’ve taken into your home?

Well, I was the pigeon lady in New York. Out here I don’t see as many pigeons because I’m not usually downtown. Looking back, it wasn’t just in my home, it was at my office. I had such audacity! [laughing] I was in my 20s and I was still hardcore in the movement. You know, and I remember  on a couple of occasions I had a giant cage in my office because sometimes you have to feed pigeons all day. I was like I’m at work all day, so I’m just going to have to, you know [feed them in the office]. A couple of times my coworkers were like, “Do you really have to have this cage in our office?” And I was like, “I really, really do.” I was lucky—nobody got mad at me. I remember putting a sign up on the bathroom—I probably did it a couple of times—that said “Do not enter. Pigeon flying.” [laughing] You know, which is crazy! At a record label! But as annoyed as they might have been at seeing pigeons in their office, I honestly think it opened up their hearts. Because the pigeons that they might see as pests in the street, they would start to see as smart with little human qualities. You can play little games with pigeons. Pigeons fall madly in love with people. They’re very friendly and very smart.

You know, there’s nothing different about me. I wasn’t born with some sensitivity chip that other people weren’t born with. I was able to open my heart to all animals and see suffering everywhere. If I can help, I’d like to help. But yeah, I’ve done some pretty wacky things like that. I mean that’s kind of weird! [laughing]

But that’s what our 20s and 30s are for, right? [laughing] So what do you say when you get push-back from people? I’ve seen clips of footage where people are pushing back pretty hard.

Well, I’ve learned that there’s a time and a place and, especially after the pandemic, you do have to be careful how you approach people. People are not as well mentally as they were before this pandemic. People were isolated, people were off their meds, people did not have their meetings as readily available to them. People have lost family members to COVID. They’ve lost neighbors. They’ve lost fathers and mothers. People have struggled and people have been afraid for their own lives. So you do have to be careful and you’re never going to really get the the vision and the message of compassion out by not showing compassion.

When I was really young in the movement I didn’t quite understand that. I was very angry, as most people in the movement are. I mean, I’m still angry. But I don’t see the person whom I’m trying to get my point across as the enemy. The enemy really is society. The enemy is our inability as a  culture to not move from unconscious to conscious right. So the media, the media pushes the idea that animals are somehow here for us to use, and the government has also done that in many ways by subsidizing the meat industry and the dairy industry. But, we’re in such a great position now that when kids see that Billy Eilish is a huge animal rights activist, that means something to them. When Kim Kardashian says, ”I’m vegan,” that means something to them. When there are celebrities that they admire—and they really are animal rights activists. I don’t think you can get more animal rights activist than Joaquin Phoenix, when he wins the Oscar and everybody else goes to an Oscar party and he brings the press with him to go to a pig vigil to give water to pigs who are on their way to slaughter—I mean we’re at a good position right now where so many people and celebrities, who kids look up to, are actually joining the fight.

But back to your question. You know I try to meet people where they are and if all they can do is say, “You know what, I might not be able to be vegan right now, but I’m going to stop wearing fur because that’s ridiculous.” I’ll take it. I’ll take that. If somebody can say, “I can’t believe, how good oatmeal milk tastes,” Okay, I’ll take that. Once people start to open their hearts just a little bit more, it keeps going. It’s just an avalanche of if I don’t feel okay about the suffering of these animals, these fur-bearing animals, then why am I okay with the suffering of that mother cow? And I think people, as long as they are open to it, can get there. But they have to be open to it. That’s the thing. They have to be open to learning about it. I still have to have faith in humanity that everybody’s heart can get there. And listen, I have seen people who own slaughter houses, who have raised animals their entire lives for food, switch over to vegetables. Who have rescued their entire last herd or their last last giant batch of chickens. There’s a huge movement of animal rights activists helping these farms switch to something that’s more sustainable, something that’s more ethical, and certainly something that’s better for the climate.

Climate change is real. Climate change is going to be the end of all of us. None of this is going to matter if this keeps going in the trajectory that it’s going. As somebody who doesn’t have children, if I did, I would be in crisis mode, thinking they’re not even going to survive their whole lives, their natural lives, given the state of this. And arguably, the number one cause of that is animal agriculture. So if people care about the future, the best thing they can do is go vegan. Most of us aren’t traveling on private planes all the time right. It’s easy to say, “those private planes, they have to go!” or “those fossil fuels!” You can do it just from inside your house. You can just stop eating animals and make a gigantic contribution to this earth not completely burning up. These wildfires and these floods and all of these catastrophes—I mean it’s obvious, the climate is in crisis.

How does one do this, too?

Well, Andy Warhol was right: everybody will be famous for 15 minutes. Imagine that man, who was a genius, certainly that he was able to say something that is coming true before our eyes. There are people that have become world famous without ever having a record deal, without ever having a television show, without ever having a giant platform, because of social media. Social media is the most incredible thing for getting the word out. Now some people are getting the word out and it’s not the right word. It’s not based on love or compassion. Some people use it for bad, like anything, but most people are using it for good. Most people are using it to fight for the undeserved, to fight for the underdog. Certainly not all of us have money for a cellphone, not all of us have money for a computer ... I would never want to suggest that all people have everything that we have, right? We’re privileged in that way. But there are places where you can go and you can get online and put out your message. If you feel like you want to write a book, then do it and try to publish it yourself. If you’re somebody that has a message or a song in your heart, put it online. You know one other person might click on it and like it or a 100,000 people might. That’s the beauty of it. So, the medium is out there. The way to actually get your word out is out there. I would say: start small and dream really big.

What is authentic Simone?

I want people to know that anything that I have accomplished or anything that I hope to accomplish, I have done, and I will continue to do, scared. And I did it anyway. It’s something you can’t ever let stand in your way. Because even if you fail, it’s a better feeling ultimately than saying, “What if?” That’s not comfortable for me. We’ve all lived with failure. We’ve all failed. It’s impossible to get through this life without failing. But people become paralyzed by their fear. They think for some reason that [I’m not scared] doing a TedX talk, which was terrifying, terrifying; or singing a song in front of an audience for the first time, terrifying; or opening up the National Animal Rights Conference in front of people that have been in it longer than I have and know a lot more than I do; or speaking to a public official who has so much power and here’s your moment with them. I’m afraid every single time! I’m always afraid, of course! But if I waited for that fear to go away, it would never go away. So you have to just do it, do it scared! do everything that you want in your life that’s important to you scared and know that you’re no different than anybody else. Just do it, do it scared! I would say that’s the most important lesson that I learned and I’m still learning. Do it scared!