With only a basketball and her long locks covering her modesty, Basketball Wives LA star Bonnie-Jill Laflin strips down for PETA in two new ads that proclaim, “Proud to Have Been NBA’s First Female Scout — Even Prouder to Be a Vegan” and “Strong. Vegan. Woman.”
You can see the ads here.
In an exclusive interview, the former and first female NBA scout for the Los Angeles Lakers reveals how her groundbreaking career prepared her to push for animal rights — even if it means stripping down for the cause. “[B]eing a female in a man’s world, I’ve got thick skin,” she says. “[I]t really helps me stand up for what I believe in. Even if you’re standing alone, you always stand up. And I like to stand up for animals.”
That’s why she went vegan: “If you go into the factory farms and you see what these animals endure and the torture — it’s not right,” she says. “And the only way to not participate in that is to go vegan.”
Each person who goes vegan saves approximately 100 animals every year from daily abuse and a terrifying death in today’s industrialized meat, egg, and dairy industries. Going vegan can give your health a boost, too: Vegans are less prone to suffering from heart disease, obesity, cancer, and strokes than meat-eaters are. And as Laflin says, “I have more energy now as a vegan than I did before.”
She’s part of a growing list of celebrities — including her Basketball Wives costar Evelyn Lozada, former Los Angeles Lakers player John Salley, Joanna Krupa, Nicole Williams, and many others — who have teamed up with PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”) to promote healthy and humane meat-free meals.
