Tom Brady has done a lot of unexpected things in his career. For example, coming out of retirement, winning seven Super Bowls, and starring in a comedy movie with Jane Fonda. Still, no one had “dog cloning” on their Brady bingo card in 2025. The 48-year-old former quarterback turned FOX Sports broadcaster confirmed that his new pup, Junie, is an actual clone of his late pit bull mix, Lua.
Lua passed away in December 2023, about a year after Brady’s divorce from Gisele Bündchen. The couple had adopted Lua back in 2014, and if you’ve ever lost a dog, you understand the hole they leave behind. Brady apparently decided that one Lua in his life wasn’t enough. So he made another.
“I love my animals. They mean the world to me and my family,” Brady said in a November 4 statement released by Colossal Biosciences, the biotech company behind Junie’s creation. “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. The company gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog.”
That “simple blood draw” turned into a scientific miracle. Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based startup with financial backing from Brady himself, teamed up with Viagen Pets and Equine, the same company responsible for cloning Barbra Streisand’s dog Samantha and Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua, Diamond Baby. Viagen has exclusive rights to technology from the Roslin Institute in Scotland, which famously cloned Dolly the Sheep in the ‘90s.
Colossal’s work goes beyond celebrity pets, though. The company has gained attention for its ambitious (some might say Jurassic Park-style) goal of “de-extincting” species like the woolly mammoth, the dodo bird, and even the dire wolf. Earlier this year, they claimed to have successfully created three dire wolf pups, though not everyone’s convinced. The International Union for Conservation of Nature politely called the claim “optimistic.”
For Brady, the science wasn’t about playing God. It was about holding onto family. Lua wasn’t just any dog; she was part of his kids’ lives. Cloning her gave them Junie, a second chance to keep that bond alive. Whether Junie acts the same or has her own personality remains to be seen, but Brady seems thrilled either way. “I’m excited how Colossal and Viagen’s tech together can help both families losing their beloved pets while helping to save endangered species,” he said.
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