The viral story of a runaway pig in West Hollywood turned out to have a Hollywood ending.
This past weekend, a video showed a piglet running through the streets of West Hollywood. In the video Jamaal Harrison, who captured the video, is seen chasing the pig as he yells, “There’s a pig in West Hollywood!” He later says, “We gotta catch the pig. … Come back pig!”
The pig was eventually caught, and was dubbed Wilbur in homage to “Charlotte’s Web.”
But although he spent the first part of the week at the West L.A. Animal Services Shelter waiting for his owner to come get him, nobody came forward. A silent auction was held Thursday to find a new owner and Marcia Zwilling, managing director of the Diane Warren Foundation, made the winning bid on behalf of the Oscar-nominated songwriter.
“A lot of my friends were sending me footage of this poor little pig running through the streets of West Hollywood,” Warren told Variety.
“I called my friend Marcia Zwilling who runs my Animal Foundation. We agreed that we gotta save this pig! It reminds me that five years ago when my animal activist good friend Simone Reyes and I saved a cow which was known as ‘free the cow.’ Marcia went this morning to the shelter where they were auctioning the pig and as Marcia said, ‘Whatever it takes we gotta get this pig and give him a safe, wonderful home.’ So BY ANY MEANS we did! Wilbur is the cutest little thing and he’s a celebrity now! We are all in love with him. Animals are precious sentient creatures. Welcome Wilbur!!!,” Warren said via email.
The orphaned porker was estimated to be about 11 weeks old.
But he could grow to quite a bit larger in adulthood. “This little pig can actually grow to be 50 pounds to 125 pounds,” Animal Services Public Information Officer, Agnes Sibal-von Debschitz told KTLA News, “You have to make sure you have enough space where you’re housing the pig, and then there are zoning and setback requirements.”
“He’s going to have a fabulous home on a ranch with gourmet salads every day,” Zwilling told KTLA.