Lucifer’s Lesley-Ann Brandt Takes On Cub Petting: A Mother’s ‘Worst Nightmare’

For Immediate Release:
November 22, 2021

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

As Tiger King 2 captivates viewers on Netflix, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Lucifer actor and mom to 4-year-old Kingston, stars in a new PETA video in which she implores fellow mothers never to take their families to cruel cub-petting displays.

Visiting the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries–accredited Lions Tigers & Bears in California, which provides rescued animals with lifetime care and doesn’t breed, buy, sell, or allow public encounters with them, Brandt begins, “As a mother, my worst nightmare is that I will outlive my son or that my baby would be taken from me. That’s why I’m here to ask you, mother to mother, to never support cub-petting.”

She explains that vulnerable cubs often scream in fear as they’re passed around among strange humans, sometimes for hours on end—and that bear, tiger, and lion mothers are left devastated at being separated from their children. “Just like us, they love their babies. They want to raise them. And their babies want and need that, too,” Brandt says.

When the baby animals become too big to be used for photo ops and public encounters, they are often either killed or relegated to barren cages at decrepit roadside zoos. Some are used for breeding to perpetuate the cycle—and then they, too, experience pain when their babies are taken from them.

“Please, let’s stand up for our fellow mothers and help end this abuse,” the South African native concludes. “Never participate in photo ops with wild animals, and never visit a roadside zoo.”

Brandt is part of a long list of celebrities—including Michael Keaton, Joaquin Phoenix, Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer, and Krysten Ritter—who’ve teamed up with PETA to promote kindness to animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.