Behind the scenes of his budding career in NFL media and Middle Eastern flag football, Tom Brady has become quite the businessman as well.
Earlier this year, when a company named Colossal Biosciences brought the dire wolf back from extinction, Brady surprised many by celebrating the achievement on Instagram. That’s because Brady is an investor in the company, which has its sights set on the woolly mammoth as its next “de-extinction” project.
The more shocking revelation came this week, when in an article at People magazine, Brady revealed that he tapped Colossal for a more personal experiment as well.
“I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,” Brady told People. “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.”
That’s right. Using blood collected from Brady’s previous dog, Lua, who passed away in 2023, the company created a clone.
Brady’s new dog, Junie, is a one-for-one replacement of Lua.
The process was possible after Colossal acquired a cloning company called Viagen, which had previously made headlines for cloning the pets of Barbara Streisand and Paris Hilton.
Brady told People that he is “excited how Colossal and Viagen’s tech together can help both families losing their beloved pets while helping to save endangered species.”
Nothing about Brady cloning his pet should come as a huge surprise, given his extraordinary wealth. Many people would go to extreme lengths to keep their pets around if they had the chance.
But given Brady’s peculiar persona in the broadcast booth and fans’ lukewarm reception of him as a media personality, the future Hall of Famer seems to be moving further toward a celebrity lifestyle in retirement, despite his best intentions to relate to audiences.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.