Dame Joanna Lumley will feature in the Christmas special of Amandaland

Dame Joanna Lumley spoke about her diet earlier this year(Image: © 2025 PA Media, All Rights Reserved)

Dame Joanna Lumley has openly shared the difficulties she encountered after making a major dietary shift – one she’s stuck with ever since. The 79-year-old actress, renowned for her roles in Absolutely Fabulous and Amandaland, disclosed that switching to a vegetarian diet was ‘awful’ at first.

Speaking on the Waitrose-sponsored Dish podcast with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, she recently looked back on her initial experiences. Earlier in 2025, she said: “It was awful to begin with, going out to restaurants and dinner parties, because people didn’t know what to do.

“They’d panic and try to make you eight eggs and sort of lasagnes which just turned into huge slabs of concrete with something horrifying in between. There was no way of saying, can I just eat the vegetables?”

A vegetarian since the late 1970s, the actress is an ardent advocate for sustainable living and animal welfare. Thankfully, she observes, growing acceptance of vegetarianism has made things much easier for herself and other plant-based diners, according to the Mirror.

Nevertheless, Joanna remains deeply appreciative whenever someone caters to her dietary requirements. She added: “I like raw things very much, like salads and stuff. I’m so touched when anybody’s done anything vegetarian for me.”

Around 6.1 million Brits have embraced vegetarianism as of 2025, research by Finder claims. This figure includes 5.2% who were already following a meat-free diet (roughly 2.8 million people) alongside 6.3% planning to adopt vegetarian habits this year – adding another 3.4 million to the list.

Joanna has become well-known for her vegetarian approach to eating, typically favouring lighter fare and smaller portions rather than hefty meals. In 2021, she credited her health to her plant-based choices, declaring she’s ‘never ill’ – although she admitted that transitioning to complete veganism would be challenging.

She claimed at the time: “I’ve been a vegetarian for more than 40 years and I’m never ill. The diet I love best is: eat stuff, mostly vegetables, not too much. And exercise? I have a tall thin house and I run up and down the stairs a lot!”

Speaking on the Table Manners podcast with Jessie and Lennie Ware, she elaborated: “I suddenly thought I was not going to do this anymore. I am not going to eat meat or fish. No more, finished, gone. But I am not a vegan. That is the next step, but I love cheese.”