Tom Brady has revealed that his new dog, Junie, is a clone of his late pet Lua, who died in 2023. The announcement came on Tuesday, with Brady explaining that the cloning procedure was handled by Texas-based biotech startup Colossal Biosciences. Lua, a pitbull mix, was originally adopted in 2014 by Brady and his former wife, Gisele Bündchen, and passed away a year after their divorce was finalized.
Brady, who is an investor in Colossal, said the company used “non-invasive cloning technology through a simple blood draw” taken before Lua’s death. Colossal also announced on Tuesday its acquisition of Viagen Pets & Equine, a leading animal cloning firm known for replicating pets for celebrities like Paris Hilton and Barbra Streisand.
Brady expressed his appreciation for the technology, stating, “I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family.” He added that the cloning process gave his family “a second chance” with a clone of their beloved dog and expressed optimism about the technology’s potential to help others mourning lost pets and even support efforts to save endangered species.
Colossal, which brands itself as “the world’s de-extinction company,” recently made headlines for claiming to have “successfully restored” the dire wolf, a species extinct for around 12,500 years, using cloning and gene-editing technology.