Barbara Streisand Reveals She Cloned Her Dog Samantha Twice, PETA Objects

Barbra Streisand, 75, is now the proud owner of not one but three nearly-identical dogs.

BARBARA STREISAND CLONED BELOVED DOG

The crooner recently revealed that two of her dogs, Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet, were cloned from her beloved pet Samantha, who passed away in 2017. Before the 14-year-old dog died, Streisand had cells taken from her mouth and stomach. “They have different personalities,” the singer/actress told Variety. “I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her [Samantha’s] brown eyes and seriousness.”

Prior to her cover story interview with the magazine, Streisand suggested they caption the portrait taken with her three dogs to be called “Send in the Clones.” The third dog, Miss Fanny, however, is a distant cousin of Samantha. According to Streisand, the dog’s mother had been named Funny Girl, so the singer went with Miss Fanny because that is what Fanny Brice’s dresser calls her character in the 1968 film.

Once her cloned dogs arrived, Streisand dressed them up in red and purple to tell them apart, which spawned their names Miss Scarlett and Miss Violet. All three pets are frequently featured on the celebrity’s Instagram page.

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In a statement to Page Six, however, PETA expressed dismay at Streisand’s choice to clone her pet. “We all want our beloved dogs to live forever, but while it may sound like a good idea, cloning doesn’t achieve that—instead, it creates a new and different dog who has only the physical characteristics of the original,” the organization said. “Animals’ personalities, quirks, and very ‘essence’ simply cannot be replicated, and when you consider that millions of wonderful adoptable dogs are languishing in animal shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways when abandoned, you realize that cloning adds to the homeless-animal population crisis. And because cloning has a high failure rate, many dogs are caged and tormented for every birth that actually occurs—so that’s not fair to them, despite the best intentions. We feel Barbra’s grief at losing her beloved dog but would also love to have talked her out of cloning.”

Also in the interview, the staunch Democrat talked politics and her views on Donald Trump. “He embodies the nasty remarks he makes about other people. He’s a liar. He’s crooked,” she said. “Everything he called Hillary, he is.” She also spoke in-depth about the inequality of women in the film industry and the importance of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.

Streisand is currently writing a memoir about her life. “I just figured out my dedication for my book: ‘For my mother and all she did for me,'” she shared. “You don’t know if that’s negative or positive… It’s so difficult because I don’t want to relive my life,” she said of writing a memoir in general. “Once is enough.”