Tom Brady has revealed that his pet dog Junie is a clone of his late dog Lua, who died in 2023. Lua, a pitbull mix, was adopted by Brady and his then-wife Gisele Bündchen during their marriage and even appeared with Brady in a 2014 Ugg Australia advert.
The former NFL star worked with biotech company Colossal Biosciences, in which he is an investor, to create the clone using non-invasive cloning technology from a blood draw taken before Lua's death. 'I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,' Brady said in a statement. 'Colossal gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog.'
Colossal Biosciences, which recently acquired Viagen—a company known for cloning celebrity pets—has exclusive licensing to technologies developed by the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, famous for cloning Dolly the Sheep in the 1990s. The company is also working on anti-extinction projects, such as bringing back Dire Wolves and the Dodo.
Other celebrities have also cloned their pets. Barbra Streisand cloned her dog Samantha, who died in 2017, resulting in two clones named Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet. However, Streisand noted, 'The soul cannot be cloned. They're so beautiful but they're totally different.' Paris Hilton also cloned her dog Diamond Baby after it went missing in 2022.
The cloning process involves collecting a DNA sample from the pet, replacing the nucleus of a donor cell with the pet's nucleus, stimulating cell division, and implanting the embryo into a surrogate for gestation. Viagen's website provides a cost breakdown for the service.
