With Thanksgiving officially here, families across the United States are busy preparing their holiday feasts, including the necessary turkeys and accompanying stuffing ingredients.
Besides food, Thanksgiving is one of the most popular days of the year for people to get together with loved ones and express their gratitude.
But while the holiday dates back to 1619 and 1621, when the “first” Thanksgiving took place, not everyone in America necessarily celebrates the occasion.
In fact, many celebrities have been vocal about their opinions on Thanksgiving, with some explaining why they don’t celebrate the occasion and others speaking out against it. From Angelina Jolie to Shailene Woodley, here are seven celebrities who don’t like Thanksgiving.
Angelina Jolie
Over the years, it’s been reported that the mother-of-six isn’t a fan of Thanksgiving, given her controversial history. In the 1600s, settlers, later known as Pilgrims, had arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts to share a meal with the native Wampanoag Indians of the land.
In 2016, a friend of Jolie told PopEater that the actor was “grossed” by the American holiday and that she had every intention of honoring it.
“Jolie hates this holiday and doesn’t want to be involved in rewriting history like so many other Americans,” the source said via Fox News.
“Celebrating what white settlers did to native Indians, the domination of one culture over another, is just not his style. She certainly doesn’t want to teach her multicultural family how to celebrate a murder story.
Liam Hemsworth
As Liam Hemsworth is from Australia, he didn’t grow up celebrating the American holiday. “We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, but we have similar days,” he told E! News in 2014.
However, he noted that he still takes part in Thanksgiving celebrations, adding: “I was [in the US for] six years. so I had a lot of Thanksgiving.
Maim Bialik
The Big Bang Theory The star spoke candidly about the holidays and the many reasons she doesn’t like them. In a video posted on her YouTube channel in 2017, she explained that she was vegan and against killing birds, such as turkeys.
“I don’t like the tradition of killing a bird which in most cases has been genetically modified to be so big it can’t even stand up and then you put its carcass on a platter and you cut it up and then you eat it,” Bialik said in the video. “I don’t like that tradition.”
Shailene Woodley
Shailene Woodley has spoken a lot about the holiday and why she previously chose not to celebrate it. In 2016, the Divergent The star joined the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters and criticized the “false narratives” being taught to American children about the holidays.
“Ever since we were little we have been cutting out pictures of pilgrims, parties and turkeys from cardboard, and yet none of our children know the truth not only about what happened to the Native Americans when the Westerners decided to colonize this country. , but about what still happens to Native Americans,” she said during an interview with TYT Politics.
Sarah Silverman
Similar to Balik, Sarah Silverman has used her platform to criticize the American holiday and the fact that thousands of turkeys are killed every year because of it.
In her 2018 Thanksgiving special, the comedian touched on the holiday’s history, joking that “the turkey we kill is a symbol of the Native Americans we killed.”
“We are so grateful for their farming techniques that they taught us, as we learned to harvest our own food from the lands we took,” she continued sarcastically. “We give thanks for being Americans. God bless America and its greedy and righteous heritage.
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart notably poked fun at Thanksgiving on his show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2014, he jokingly addressed the history of the party and how he would remember it.
“I celebrated Thanksgiving the old-fashioned way,” he said at the time. “I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had a huge party, then I killed them and took their land.”
Emily Blunt
As Emily Blunt is from London, Thanksgiving was not part of her family’s holiday traditions growing up. However, she previously noted that she and her husband, John Krasinski, included Thanksgiving foods when celebrating Christmas.
“We don’t do Thanksgiving,” she told E! News in 2014. “This year I said to my husband, ‘We’re going to have two turkeys because we haven’t’ made a Christmas turkey for the last two Christmases and I want to do that.'”