Barbra Streisand explains why she ended up making 4 clones of her beloved dog
- In an interview with Variety, singer Barbra Streisand revealed she had her dog cloned after it passed away.
- In a New York Times editorial on Friday, she explains why - and that the process actually produced four clones.
Barbra Streisand loved her Coton de Tulear dog so much that she had it cloned after it passed away last year, she revealed in a Variety interview earlier this week. And in a New York Times editorial on Friday, Streisand explained why - and said the experiment actually produced four clones.
"I was so devastated by the loss of my dear Samantha, after 14 years together, that I just wanted to keep her with me in some way," she wrote. "It was easier to let Sammie go if I knew I could keep some part of her alive, something that came from her DNA. A friend had cloned his beloved dog, and I was very impressed with that dog. So Sammie's doctor took some cells from inside her cheek and the skin on her tummy just before she died."
Between Samantha passing away and the clones, though, Streisand ended up with two other dogs: a Maltipoo named Sadie that she adopted because she missed her old dog so much, and then another Coton de Tulear that Samantha's breeder offered Streisand.
And then she got a call from the lab. Three healthy clones were sent to Streisand, on top of the two she had acquired.
"My manager's assistant really wanted Sadie, and I knew she would give her a good home," she wrote. "And then the 13-year-old daughter of my A&R man bonded with one of the clones, so I gave them that puppy."
Now Streisand has three dogs, two of them clones. She said that she thinks of Samantha "every time she looks at their faces."