{"id":15638,"date":"2012-11-30T00:02:32","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T08:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=15638"},"modified":"2012-11-28T21:04:03","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T05:04:03","slug":"famous-people-and-their-unusual-pets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/11\/famous-people-and-their-unusual-pets\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous People and Their Unusual Pets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>1) George Clooney was given a pet Vietnamese black bristled potbelly pig named “Max” by his then girlfriend, Kelly Preston.\u00a0 George loved Max and not only was the pig allowed in the house, but Clooney also stated the 300 pound pig often liked to sleep in his bed with him.<\/p>\n

2) Actor John Barrymore had a pet vulture named Moloney. Moloney would sit on Barrymore’s lap and “kiss”. (It liked to rub noses with him.)\u00a0 John also owned many other birds as well as an opossum, a kinkajou, a mouse deer, six dogs, and a monkey who often bit people, which ultimately resulted in him giving it to a zoo.\u00a0 The vulture was his favorite though.\u00a0 But he also ultimately gave that away.\u00a0 He recounts the tail as follows:<\/p>\n

My home was broken up by divorce and I didn’t want to live there.\u00a0 The pet shops could have the other birds (he owned many others), but I felt Moloney was too good a friend for such a fate.\u00a0 So I said to myself, ‘We’ll find a nice jungle for Moloney.’<\/p>\n

We boarded the yacht- Moloney and I- and we told the crew to keep going until we came to a jungle.\u00a0 Some place off the coast of South America, several days later, we spied a lovely jungle.\u00a0 It was late afternoon, but I decided we’d better have it over.\u00a0 I had the sailors row us- Moloney and I- to shore.\u00a0 I took Moloney out of his cage.\u00a0 It was a folding cage, so I folded it up and threw it in the ocean.\u00a0 We had an affectionate farewell.\u00a0 He flapped his wings and I detected a note of despair in his voice.\u00a0 I cried, because I was leaving my old friend…<\/p>\n

I watched poor Moloney as I was rowed back to the yacht.\u00a0 He shuffled around like Bert Williams, but mostly he stood still, looking at me.\u00a0 The next morning, when we were getting ready to steam away, I looked toward the shore and saw a black spot.\u00a0 I grabbed the glasses.\u00a0 It was Moloney!\u00a0 He was standing right where I’d left him.<\/p>\n

I was rowed back to shore.\u00a0 When Moloney saw me, he flapped his wings and squeaked with joy.\u00a0 He rubbed his beak against mine.\u00a0 What a reunion!<\/p>\n

I thought he’d fly off into the jungle, but he didn’t know what a jungle was.\u00a0 He couldn’t fend for himself.\u00a0 He doubtless had been born in captivity.\u00a0 I couldn’t recover the cage, so we had to build a new one.\u00a0 Sure, I had to bring him back home with me.\u00a0 You can’t just desert a friend and leave him to die.\u00a0 I gave Moloney to some zoo and for all I know he’s still there. (This was from an interview in 1939.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3) King Alexander of Greece was at his Tatoi summer estate when a monkey that lived on his estate attacked him, biting him on the legs and stomach area.\u00a0 This event ended up being the death of him, as the wounds became infected, which resulted in septicemia.\u00a0 He died just 23 days after being bitten.<\/p>\n

4) Mike Tyson has owned three different tigers.\u00a0 As to why he likes tigers, “I’m in prison and I’ve got this big deal with Showtime and the MGM (upon his release). I am loaded. This guy on the phone says, ‘You can be driving your Ferrari with your cub in the front seat.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, when I come out, I’m gonna be a cool dude. I’m gonna have a tiger in my car. I’m gonna be a baller.’ ”<\/p>\n

5) Leonardo DiCaprio has a pet bearded dragon lizard named “Blizzard”.<\/p>\n

6) Teddy Roosevelt loved hunting, but once refused to shoot a bear that had been severely injured and tied up. This incident is reputed to have inspired the “teddy bear”. Roosevelt loved animals and among his many pets were a zebra, a coyote, and a hyena.<\/p>\n

7) As a young actress, Elizabeth Taylor had a pet chipmunk named “Nibbles”.\u00a0 In 1946, she wrote a book called Nibbles and Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n

8) Paris Hilton had a pet rat and used to own a pet honey bear.\u00a0 The bear was confiscated because it is illegal to keep a bear as a pet in California.<\/p>\n

9) Hugh Hefner has a zoo license. Among his many pets are peacocks and spider monkeys.<\/p>\n

10) King James I of England kept 11 lions, 2 leopards, 3 eagles, 2 owls, 2 mountain cats and a jackal in the tower of London.<\/p>\n

11) 30th U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge, owned 2 lion cubs, an antelope, a pygmy hippo, a wallaby, a donkey, a goose, and several raccoons.<\/p>\n

12) Kubla Khan owned the largest number of dogs ever by a single person. He reportedly had over 5,000 Mastifs.<\/p>\n

13) President John Quincey Adams had a pet alligator given to him by the Marquis De Lafayette.<\/p>\n

14) Jessica Simpson has a pet pot-bellied pig named “Brutus”.<\/p>\n

15) Angelina Jolie had a female pet rat named “Harry”. She reportedly sometimes took baths with it.\u00a0 Others who’ve owned pet rats at one time or another include Clint Eastwood, John Cleese, Grace Slick, and Pink, who owns two rats- Thelma and Louise<\/p>\n

16) Kim Basinger has hermit crabs, amongst her 21 pets<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) George Clooney was given a pet Vietnamese black bristled potbelly pig named “Max” by his then girlfriend, Kelly Preston.\u00a0 George loved Max and not only was the pig allowed in the house, but Clooney also stated the 300 pound pig often liked to sleep in his bed with him. 2) Actor John Barrymore had a pet vulture named Moloney. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":17092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3018],"tags":[642],"class_list":["post-15638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facts_lists","tag-animal-facts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15638"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17100,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions\/17100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}