Six Strange Celebrity Pets

May 8, 2017

Michael Jackson was famous for his strange and exotic pets. His chimpanzee Bubbles received almost as much publicity as he did! He would insist on travelling with his pets too and even brought them into the recording studio with him, much to the dismay of everyone else around.

Many other animals wandered around the Neverland estate, including two orangutans, two tigers (Thriller and Sabu), giraffes, Rikki the Parrot, Gypsy the Elephant, three Llamas (Louie, Lola and Mr. Tibbs), an 18-foot albino python named Madonna and a boa constrictor called Muscles, as well as a flock of flamingos. Some of these pets found good homes or sanctuaries after Jackson’s death, but for some, we’ll never know.

Mike Tyson is known for his love of tigers. For a short time, he owned three Bengals called Kenya, Storm and Boris. They now reside in a Colorado refugee as Tyson couldn’t get a license to own them.

Another lover of big cats was animal activist Tippi Hedren, known for her famous role in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds. She a big, beautiful, majestic lion that was treated like one of the family. His name was Neil and it wasn’t unusual to find him lounging by the pool, in the living-room or sleeping in their beds. Hedren later lobbied for the protection of these wild animals as pets.

Perhaps one of the oddest celebrity pets is Tori Spelling’s silkie bantam chicken named Coco. You can find Tori and Coco enjoying a moment together all over the Internet. Coco lives in the house and goes almost everywhere they go. She even enjoys her own bed right beside Tori herself in the master bedroom! She truly is the chicken of the roost!

For actor Nicolas Cage, his pet octopus gave him inspiration for method acting! Being interested in animal behaviour, Cage used to love to study the animal before he had to give it up. Costing something like $150K and expensive to keep was too much for Cage.

Leonardo DiCaprio owns a 20-year-old Sulcata tortoise that will outlive the actor by decades, as these prehistoric beauties live to 100 years old and can reach 200 lbs at full maturity.

Do you know of any other strange celebrity pets? Let us know in the comments below.

Photo Credits:

Tambako The Jaguar - Chimp with something in the hand

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8070463@N03/27713734360

Adrien Sifre - White Tiger Variation6

https://www.flickr.com/photos/47735293@N06/15208556485

normanack - two days old

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29278394@N00/8224070401

Rodney Lewis - Sulcata

https://www.flickr.com/photos/70172955@N00/2289501828