Paris Hilton’s kinkajou

Paris Hilton isn’t shy about her love for her pets. However, people were surprised when in 2005 Paris began carrying a pet kinkajou – a raccoon-like South American rainforest creature – named Baby Luv around with her in public. Hilton got a tetanus shot in 2006 after Baby Luv nipped her finger. A publicist said the wound was “superficial”, and after the attack, Hilton disagreed with her veterinarian’s suggestion that she put her pet down due to the threat of rabies.

Salvador Dali’s 0celot

Artists are known for expressing themselves in unconventional ways, and Salvador Dali was no exception. As a child, he kept a bat as a pet; later, an anteater. But Dali’s most faithful companion was his pet ocelot, Babou. The two were inseparable, and Babou even accompanied Dali to fancy restaurants. One day when a woman at one of these restaurants was shocked to see an ocelot sitting among the diners, Dali told her that the animal was simply a house cat that he had painted.

Jessica the hippo

Credit: Traveler’s Log

Unlike most hippos, which can be aggressive and unpredictable, Jessica the Hippopotamus is as friendly as any domesticated animal. On March 11, 2000, Tonie and Shirley Joubert discovered a baby hippopotamus on the bank of the river by their South African home. The hippo was only hours old and unable to move. The Jouberts helped the baby animal, which they named Jessica. The couple knew that normal milk would not do, so they invented a special formula made from egg yolks, cream and full-fat cow’s milk.

Rambo the alligator

Meet Rambo, a pet alligator owned by Mary Thorn of Florida. Rambo wears clothes, rides motorcycles and ATVs, and is a gentle reptile who has lived his entire life in captivity. Rambo has become something of a local legend, with Thorn having made multiple media appearances with him. Thorn trained her gator not to bite, and to keep his jaws clamped tight while others are around.

Kirstie Alley’s 14 lemurs

Late Cheers actress Kirstie Alley was known for being an animal lover. She famously had 14 ring-tailed lemurs she kept as pets, which she acquired because “they are a great animal” and reportedly because she wanted to help save rainforests in Madagascar. Although Alley acknowledged that lemurs are not domesticated animals, she also admitted that she just couldn’t resist their cute faces.

Ice-T’s sharks

Ice-T and his wife Coco have a fascination with sharks, but their love for the creatures was cemented when they swam with them in the Bahamas. In an aquarium in their home, they keep several pet sharks (8 by 3 feet in size). In an interview with AllHipHop, Ice-T explained that he tries to create a spa-like environment in his house. “You spend money and go on vacations to have tranquility,” he said, “so I try to make it in my house – when the dogs aren’t barking and Chanel isn’t going crazy.”

Nicolas Cage’s albino cobra

Nicolas Cage is known for his love of reptiles, including two albino king cobras named Moby and Sheba. In case they bit him, he kept an antidote around; if he didn’t receive it within 15 minutes of being bitten, he would die. Cage also had an octopus, a two-headed snake named Harvey and a five-foot-long speckled Asian water monitor lizard as pets. He’s also owned several turtles, fish and cats. Cage donates his exotic pets to zoos and wildlife centers when he can no longer care for them.

Vanilla Ice’s wallaroo

Rapper Vanilla Ice loves kangaroos. In fact, he kept one as a pet for 14 years. The animal was actually a wallaroo (a cross between a wallaby and a kangaroo) and was named Bucky Buckaroo. Bucky lived in Ice’s home, wore a diaper, and played with the musician’s children until he was too big to play with them anymore. Eventually, Ice said that he moved the kangaroo to a farm in Port St. Lucie, Florida where it escaped with its best buddy – Poncho the goat.

Pua and Stewie the anteaters

Angela Goodwin of Oregon keeps her pet anteaters, Pua and Stewie, well-fed. “They know how to open the fridge, open the doors, open the window,” says Goodwin. Angela’s unusual pets might look cute but are not very good at keeping themselves clean. They have a bad habit of clawing at furniture, and they can also release a terrible odour when scared. Goodwin has described them as “giant rats.”

Agee the polar bear

Mark Dumas, a bear tamer from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, often swims with his polar bear, Agee. Agee is a 25-year-old polar bear who loves to play with Mark and his wife Dawn. The couple trained the 362-kilogram Agee for filming in high-budget films and commercials, and she made her screen debut at just a few weeks old in the 1996 film Alaska5. In late May 2022, Mark and Dawn made the difficult decision to retire Agee. She now lives at Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg.