Tom Brady Cloned His Dog
So, this is a thing that apparently happens now.
Tom Brady is joining a small, exclusive group of celebrity pet owners. The NFL star has revealed that his dog Junie is actually a clone of his late pooch Lua, created by using blood collected from Lua prior to her death a couple years ago. In making this announcement, Brady is hoping to promote the technology so other dog lovers can have more time with their canine partners.
The revelation was part of Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company Brady invests in, confirming that it had acquired Viagen Pets and Equine, another biotech company which is famous for cloning celebrity pets. Brady shared that Colossal was able to use DNA from his pit bull mix Lua (who died at the end of 2023) to create his new dog, Junie.
“I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,” Brady said in a Nov. 4 statement attained by People. “A few years ago, I worked with Colossal and leveraged their non-invasive cloning technology through a simple blood draw of our family's elderly dog before she passed.”
He credited the procedure with giving “my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog.”
Though he’s had Junie for a while now, Brady waited to reveal she’s a clone until this biotech merger, saying he’s “excited how Colossal and Viagen's tech together can help both families losing their beloved pets while helping to save endangered species.”
Viagen has made headlines in the past for cloning Barbra Streisand’s dog in 2018, and cloning Paris Hilton’s lost dog into two puppies in 2024. Colossal, however, is better known for its efforts to bring back extinct animals, like the dire wolf and dodo.
The merger of the two envelope-pushing companies is meant to further both of their goals in revitalizing animal life. “Joining forces with Colossal — the only de-extinction company and leader in biotechnology — gives Viagen the scale, resources, and shared vision to expand what we can do,” said Viagen president Blake Russell in a press release. “Together, we can accelerate breakthroughs in genetic preservation, animal health, and endangered species recovery through biobanking and cloning at a scale that simply wasn’t possible on our own.”
