- Robert Brantley said he found a group of 13 abandoned
kittens in aFacebook video. - His story went viral and has since reemerged on
TikTok , receiving 34 million views.
A man who said he rescued 13 kittens from the "side of the road" has gone viral with a series of Facebook posts he made about the experience which were then reuploaded to TikTok, gaining them millions of views.
Robert Brantley is a professional rifle shooter based in Louisiana, according to his Facebook account and a profile of him on a precision rifle championship website. On June 8, he posted a video on Facebook that showed several kittens walking around inside his vehicle.
He said he was coming back from a shooting range when he was "ambushed" by the kittens, adding, "Working on getting them all a good home! The kids are loving on them in the meantime and we're fattening them up!"
While Brantley's previous Facebook posts, which typically show videos of him shooting guns at various rifle ranges, tend to receive tens of comments and likes, his post about the kittens blew up on the platform, receiving more than 7,000 comments and 61,000 likes. One top comment with 649 likes, said, "You are my favorite human on the internet today."
Brantley continued to post updates about the kittens on Facebook over the next few days, saying that he has been feeding and cleaning them, adding in one post, "There are starving animals everywhere. We truly see them regularly."
In a Facebook post from June 13, he said that after his posts went viral, people started contacting him and asking him to find new homes for other animals they had found. In one post from June 16, which has 10,000 likes, Brantley said he rescued two more kittens and was planning on reuniting them with their mother.
His follow-up posts have received thousands of likes and comments each, with some people referring to him as a "hero" and others writing father's day wishes, referring to him with the nickname "Cat Daddy."
On June 8, a clip that showed a man finding a group of kittens was reuploaded onto TikTok by a user called @strawberryshakefanatic who said in a caption that she got the footage from Brantley's Facebook page.
@courtneybrantley1 Kitten update! Thank you all so much for all the kind words, advice and love that has been shown! Come be part of this exciting experience with us! Like and follow for part 2. #fyp #kittens #robertbrantley #kittenhero ♬ original sound - courtneybrantley1
In the clip, the man in the video could be seen filming a kitten that was walking in the middle of the road. He picked it up, and a large group of kittens then emerged out of the grass, appearing to shock him. "We've got a kitten problem," he said.
The clip now has more than 34 million views on @strawberryshakefanatic's account, with commenters saying the kittens were very "cute" and that they were glad someone found them. The user did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
@strawberryshakefanatic God i’ve seen what you’ve done for others. #fyp #kittens ♬ original sound - Lauren René Allen ¨̮
The original clip is no longer available to view on Facebook, but a version of it was uploaded onto TikTok by another user called Courtney Brantley, who said the man in the video was her husband. Courtney posted three videos on June 15, which showed her and a man, who she said was Robert, answering questions about the purported kitten rescue. These videos have more than 16,000 TikTok views cumulatively.
@courtneybrantley1 Answers to all the questions we have received....Part 1#kittensoftiktok #youguysareamazing #fyp #robertbrantley #kittenhero #ittakesavillage #kittenadoption ♬ original sound courtneybrantley1
The couple said in the videos that they were going to keep two of the kittens they found but were now in the process of giving the rest of them away to new owners.
"I thought Robert was joking when he called me and told me there were like 10 kittens that were coming home because he jokes a lot, but when he pulled up in the tactical Honda and they were all barreling out, it was pretty surreal. But it was pretty cool. It was exciting," Courtney said in one of the TikToks.
The Brantleys did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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