Barbra Streisand has revealed she adored her beloved pet dog Samantha so much, that she had her cloned before she died.
The singer and actress explained that cells were taken from the mouth and stomach of the 14-year-old Coton de Tulear breed ahead of her death in 2017, resulting in two pups.
“They have different personalities,” she told Variety. “I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her brown eyes and her seriousness.”
The ‘Guilty’ singer revealed she named the cloned pooches Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet after dressing them in the colours so she could tell them apart.
Not content with her two new arrivals, the dog-loving star also became smitten with another dog, which was a distant relation of Samantha.
The Coton de Tulear dog was called Funny Girl, but the singer renamed her Miss Fanny, which is how Fanny Brice’s dresser refers to Streisand’s character in the 1968 musical that launched her acting career.
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However, animal rights organisation PETA were less impressed with the US singer for using the ludicrously expensive cloning technique.
The organisation released a statement, encouraging people to adopt the abandoned animals looking for homes rather than using science to create new ones.
They said: “We all want our beloved dogs to live forever, but cloning doesn’t achieve that-instead, it creates a new & different dog who has only the physical characteristics of the original.
“Animals’ personalities, quirks, & ‘essence’ simply cannot be replicated, & considering that millions of wonderful adoptable dogs are languishing in shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways when abandoned, you realize that cloning adds to the animal population crisis.
“Because cloning has a high failure rate, many dogs are caged & tormented for every birth that actually occurs-so that’s not fair to them, despite the best intentions. We feel Barbra Streisand’s grief at losing her beloved dog but would also love to have talked her out of cloning.”