Lucy Davis has urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to replace the real bear fur used for the King’s Guard caps “in her lifetime”.
In August The Office actress revealed she had “incurable” stage four breast cancer that had metastasised to her bones since a diagnosis a year and half ago.
Davis, 53, has now thrown her support behind a cause close to her heart.
The long-time People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) ally has sent a letter to the Prime Minister asking him urgently to instruct the Ministry of Defence to replace the real bear fur used for the King’s Guard’s caps with faux fur.
In it, she said: “Faux fur has come an awfully long way, and there is no reason why the grandeur and tradition of the King’s Guards’ caps cannot be preserved without costing bears their lives.
“I’ve spent much of my life advocating for animals and being recently diagnosed with incurable cancer has inevitably made me think more about the time I have left. I sincerely hope I get to see Britain finally commit to the caps being fur-free.”
The ministry purchases the finished caps from capmakers who source bear fur from Canada.
A video released by Peta in 2024 revealed that hunters often baited bears with buckets of sweet food before shooting them with high-powered crossbows, a form of hunting illegal in the UK under wildlife protection laws.
Many of the bears are shot several times, with some escaping but then dying slowly from blood loss, gangrene, starvation or dehydration.
Davis’s letter concludes by asking: “Please, Prime Minister, won’t you make this happen in my lifetime?”
The actress previously partnered with Peta in 2007 for an anti-fur campaign on the same issue.
At the time she posed naked for an advertisement lying on a Union Jack flag holding a teddy bear, with the banner reading: “Bare skin, not Bear Skin.”
She said: “So much money is spent, and so much cruelty is spent, on what at the end of the day is a hat and that is it.
“Not only was I horrified to find that it was one bear to make one hat, but also it’s not really just one bear in a way it can be one whole family. That whole family dies, and again, it’s just for a hat.”
Other famous faces who had spoken out about the slaughter of black bears for ceremonial headpieces during that time also included Pamela Anderson, Sadie Frost, Dame Jilly Cooper and Amanda Holden.
Davis is best known for playing receptionist Dawn Tinsley in Ricky Gervais’s hit BBC series The Office.
She went on to appear in films including Shaun Of The Dead and Wonder Woman, and played Hilda Spellman in the Netflix series The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina.
When she revealed her diagnosis, the actress said the cancer has metastasised to her spine, right hip and ribs, leaving it “too late” for chemotherapy.
She wrote on Instagram: “As of now, I’m trying to live out whatever might be left of my life in as fun a way as I possibly can.”
“I’m not scared of whatever comes next. I’m at peace with it.”
