The incident, which occurred Tuesday, was a protest coordinated with the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Cromwell is a longtime supporter of the group and serves as the “honorary director”. He was seen in a video released by the organization telling Starbucks to “stop charging more” on plant-based milk.
Starbucks charges about 70 cents extra for a dairy alternative, which includes soy, coconut, almond and oat milk, depending on the US city. The chain recently dropped the surcharge at its UK stores.
“My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to stop punishing kind, environmentally conscious customers for choosing plant milk,” Cromwell said in a PETA press release. “We all have a life-and-death stake in a climate catastrophe, and Starbucks must do its part by ending the increase in its vegetable prices.”
The incident apparently lasted about half an hour before police arrived to clear a downtown Manhattan cafe. Cromwell seemed to scrape the glue off his hand with a knife.
PETA has always been vocal about this issue. They recently asked Sir Paul McCartney to write an open letter to the company to former CEO Kevin Johnson asking its US locations to scrap the surcharge as they did in the UK.
Cromwell was also nominated for an Academy Award for his role as a farmer in the 1995 film “Babe.” He is currently playing Ewan Roy in “Succession” which airs on HBO. Like CNN, HBO is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
