NFL legend Tom Brady has revealed that his family's new dog, Junie, is actually a clone of their late pit bull mix, Lua, the Guardian reports. The cloning was carried out by Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based biotech firm in which Brady is an investor. According to a statement released by Colossal, the company used a blood draw taken from the elderly Lua before she died in December 2023. People has side-by-side pics of the two pups and notes that Lua was a frequent presence on the social media accounts of both Brady and his now-ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen.
"I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family," Brady said, explaining that the process gave them "a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog." He says the clone was created within "a few short months" of Lua's passing, the Washington Post reports. Brady's announcement came alongside Colossal's acquisition of Viagen Pets and Equine, another cloning company known for replicating the pets of celebrities like Barbra Streisand and Paris Hilton.
Viagen typically charges between $50,000 and $85,000 for dog cloning. Colossal, founded in 2021, has made headlines for its ambitious "de-extinction" research, including attempts to revive extinct animals like the woolly mammoth and the dodo. (The company recently claimed to have cloned dire wolf pups, though conservation groups have challenged those claims.) The two companies plan to combine their technologies to expand both pet cloning services and conservation efforts, such as projects to help endangered species.
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