NFL great Tom Brady says his dog is a clone of family’s deceased pit bull mix
Brady says his dog is a clone of late pet Lua
Ex-NFL star is investor in biotech firm Colossal
Company also works on de-extinction projects
Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady said Tuesday that his dog, Junie, is a clone of his family’s late pet Lua, created by Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based biotechnology company that Brady has invested in.
The Birmingham City co-owner revealed the news in a statement released through Colossal, which also announced its acquisition of another cloning company, Viagen Pets and Equine. The two firms plan to combine their technologies to expand cloning services for pet owners and conservation projects.
“I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,” Brady said. “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.”
Lua, a pit bull mix adopted by Brady and his former wife, Gisele Bündchen, died in December 2023. The sample used to create Junie was collected before Lua’s death, according to Colossal.
Brady said the company “gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog” and added 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”.
Viagen, now owned by Colossal, has previously cloned pets for celebrities including Barbra Streisand and Paris Hilton. The company holds technology licenses from the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh, which cloned Dolly the Sheep in 1996.
Colossal, founded in 2021, has drawn attention for its “de-extinction” research, including projects aimed at reviving species such as the woolly mammoth and dodo bird. The company recently claimed to have produced three cloned dire wolf pups, a claim that has been disputed by conservation groups.
Financial details of Colossal’s acquisition of Viagen were not disclosed. Cloning a dog through Viagen typically costs between $50,000 and $85,000.
Dog cloning has occasionally surfaced in mainstream pop culture, including an episode of Nathan Fielder’s HBO series The Rehearsal, which explored the ethics of replicating a beloved pet.
Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion and current Fox Sports broadcaster, said his family considers Junie “not a scientific experiment, but part of our family”.