Barbra Streisand has apparently had her favourite dog cloned TWICE. Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett were cloned from cells taken from her 14-year-old dog’s mouth and stomach. The original dog was a Coton de Tulear called Samantha that died in 2017.
She revealed this bizarre fact in Variety, telling the interviewer : “They have different personalities. I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her [Samantha’s] brown eyes and seriousness.”
This has made me wish I’d saved my hamster’s DNA when I was 14. My sweet baby Moya might still in a way be with me, regenerated in a slightly different form like a rodent Doctor Who.
Streisand’s third dog Miss Fanny is also a distant cousin of the clones. While she was waiting for her clones to be born her breeder came with another dog, whose mother happened to be called Funny Girl - the same name as the film that got Barbra her Best Actress Oscar.
Barbra was instantly infatuated. She took in the dog and named her Miss Fanny, after the way Fanny Brice’s dresser refers to the character in the film.
Soon after gaining Miss Fanny, the clones arrived. Streisand began dressing them in red and lavender to tell them apart, and so ended up naming them Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet.
Other celebrities with cloned dogs include Diane Von Fustenberg and husband Barry Diller who reportedly paid $100k to have their Jack Russell terrier Shannon cloned in 2016! And apparently Simon Cowell is considering cloning his pup too.
Are cloned pets gonna become a thing? And is it time for Doctor Who to be played by a hamster? If we're gonna casually stroll into a sci-fi future like this let's do it with a bit of pizzazz.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.