Kirstie Alley Once Pretended Her Pet Lemur Was a Cat to Pass Through Airport Security
Kirstie Alley was a self-described “animal lunatic” and had multiple pet lemurs. The actor admitted that she once pretended her lemur was a cat to get through security at the airport. Here’s what Alley said about the incident and whether she recommended keeping lemurs as pets.
Actor Kirstie Alley had 14 pet lemurs
On Dec. 5, actor Kirstie Alley died after a short battle with cancer. She was 71 years old. Alley was an animal lover and had some unusual pets – the Look Who’s Talking star kept 14 pet lemurs.
“I started out [having] lemurs because they are a great animal, and I was very interested in conservation in Madagascar [where they are from] and saving rainforests and forests,” Alley told People in 2016. “It’s actually really easy in Los Angeles, because the climate is almost identical. And then I just fell in love with them.”
She said that while each of her lemurs has “sort of distinct personalities,” they were mostly very calm creatures. “Ring-tailed lemurs are sort of Zen,” Alley said. “They literally sit around, and they look like they’re sitting in the lotus position almost, and they’re chilled out.”
Kirstie Alley once pretended her pet lemur was a cat to get through airport security
The Drop Dead Gorgeous star once admitted that she pretended her pet lemur was a cat to pass through airport security.
“When one [of my lemurs] was a baby, I was taking her [through the airport] and I fibbed and I said she was a cat,” Kirstie Alley shared on the Rachael Ray Show in 2017. “So I had the little carrier and she was in there and I thought they’d just let me walk through. But they changed the rules, so they said, ‘You have to take your cat out, ma’am. So I was like, ‘Oh my God.”
But Alley managed to keep up the charade and get her beloved pet through security. “I had this plan, I had to think of it really fast,” she said. “So I take her out and I keep her moving [so they can’t see her clearly], and I’m like, she’s really crazy, she’s so crazy, you don’t want to touch her… she’ll bite you!”
The film star said she doesn’t recommend keeping the wild animals as pets
Although Kirstie Alley loved her lemurs and found them easy to raise in the Los Angeles climate, she did not recommend them as pets for everyone.
She claimed lemurs are safe and loving around people, but taking care of them is a full-time job, and they are high-maintenance. “Lemurs live a long time – about 30 years – so it’s a huge responsibility,” the Cheers star explained to People. “You have a dog, and it lives for 15 years if you’re lucky, but lemurs live for 30 years or more and they eat all organic, and you have to keep them meticulous. I actually have a full-time animal caretaker. It’s just on my payroll!”
