Fame Gives You a Voice. What You Do With It Matters

From opening rescues and funding smaller charities to fostering, adopting and speaking up for overlooked dogs, these famous dog lovers have put their influence to practical use.

Celebrity dog content is easy currency online. One photograph of a well-known face beside an appealing dog can travel around the world before breakfast. The more interesting question is what happens after the photograph.

Sometimes the answer is an adoption. Sometimes it is a donation, a new rescue organisation or a campaign that places thousands of shelter animals in front of people who might otherwise never have considered one. A large audience does not make somebody an expert, but it can bring attention and money to work that badly needs both.

Agreement on the rest of these people’s public lives is entirely optional. The actions below stand on their own.

Building something bigger

Hilary Swank named the Hilaroo Foundation after herself and Karoo, a dog she rescued from a township in South Africa. Its programmes pair rescued animals with young people who have also had a difficult start in life. Caring for the dogs gives the young people a routine, responsibility and the chance to build trust at their own pace. At the same time, the animals receive the attention and companionship they need.

Millie Bobby Brown has taken a more hands-on route. Her Georgia farm is home to a growing collection of animals, while the rescue Joey’s Friends works with dogs from local shelters and helps find them homes. She has also said that she is taking veterinary classes. With so much of the farm now given over to animals, rescue appears to have become part of the life she is building rather than a separate celebrity project.

Ariana Grande co-founded Orange Twins Rescue in Los Angeles in 2020. The organisation remains part of her animal-welfare work and is named by the Brighter Days Ahead Foundation as a recipient of its Safe & Loved Fund. Best Friends Animal Society and Farm Sanctuary have also received support from the fund, which helps organisations involved in rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming.

In each case, adopting animals eventually led to something with room to help far more of them.

The man who made rescue television

Paul O’Grady did more than almost anyone in recent British television to change the public image of a rescue dog. When For the Love of Dogs first aired from Battersea in 2012, viewers met animals who were old, disabled, nervous, recovering from neglect or waiting for somebody willing to look beyond their age or medical notes. The programme ran for 11 series.

O’Grady never treated the dogs as sad props. He noticed their habits, laughed at their peculiarities and allowed their personalities to carry the programme. Several ended up going home with him. Battersea has said the series helped thousands of animals at its centres and other rescues around the country find homes, while O’Grady’s involvement continued off camera through fundraising and his work as an ambassador.

His death in 2023 was felt so keenly partly because viewers knew his affection for those dogs was not being performed for television. The Paul O’Grady Tribute Fund has since continued raising money for animal charities.

Making adoption visible

Drew Barrymore and Dave Bautista have both worked with the ASPCA, including appearing together in its Rescue Effect campaign. The idea behind the campaign is straightforward: adopting or fostering a shelter dog also frees a space for the next animal in need.

Barrymore has shared her home with several adopted animals over the years. Bautista currently has four adopted pit bulls—Ollie, Maggie, Penny and Talulah—and regularly talks about the breed with evident affection. Seeing four pit bulls living as much-loved family dogs offers a useful counterpoint to the suspicion that still surrounds them.

Olivia Munn appeared with her rescue dogs Frankie and Chance in the Shelter Pet Project’s #AdoptPureLove campaign. It encouraged people to look beyond assumptions about shelter animals and meet the dogs themselves. Those dogs are not second-rate alternatives to animals bought elsewhere. They arrive with individual temperaments, habits and histories, and many settle comfortably into ordinary family life.

Jennifer Aniston adopted her first rescue dog while working on Friends and has continued to adopt since. The Clydeo Fund, named after a character inspired by her dog Clyde, now supports rescue organisations working on rehabilitation, rehoming and animal-welfare advocacy.

The value of these campaigns is partly in their reach. Millions of people see the dogs, hear where they came from and may think differently about where to find their own.

The dogs who arrived unexpectedly

Some rescue stories begin without a campaign or any intention of adopting.

Woody was around 11 weeks old when Tom Hardy encountered him in Georgia during the filming of Lawless. The stray puppy was making his way towards a busy road, so Hardy stopped, scooped him up and ultimately brought him home. Woody later appeared beside him on sets and at premieres. He died in 2017, aged six, after developing polymyositis.

Dodger was living at the animal shelter used as a filming location for Gifted. Chris Evans initially thought the dogs in the building were part of the scene, but learnt that they were shelter residents waiting for homes. He walked through the kennels, met Dodger and adopted him.

Zac Efron’s dog Maca was reportedly at risk of euthanasia when he agreed to foster her. The arrangement did not remain temporary for long. Maca stayed, joining the sizeable population of dogs whose foster carers realised that the search for a permanent home had already ended.

Amanda Seyfried met Finn while working on Big Love. She took him in as a foster and expected to help find him a permanent adopter, but decided to keep him. Finn remained with her for the next 16 years, until his death in July 2026. By then, people who had followed Seyfried for years knew him almost as well as they knew her.

There is nothing especially glamorous about any of these beginnings. A person met a dog who needed somewhere to go, and the temporary plan changed.

Returning to the same rescue

Queen Camilla adopted Beth from Battersea in 2011 and Bluebell the following year. Both dogs had arrived at the rescue as strays. Camilla became Battersea’s patron in 2017 and continued visiting and supporting the charity while the two dogs settled into royal life.

After Beth died in 2024, another Battersea dog joined the family. Camilla adopted Moley as an eight-week-old puppy in 2025. The name refers to the markings on her coat, which look rather like small moles. Asked whether the puppy might receive a title, Camilla reportedly replied that she would remain “just Moley”.

Giving survivors somewhere to begin again

Daniel Henney adopted Juliette after she was rescued from the dog-meat trade in South Korea. Before her rescue, she had reportedly been kept as a breeding dog. Henney later adopted other dogs saved from the trade and became involved in efforts to help those still waiting to leave it.

That work took him back to South Korea in 2025, when he accompanied Humane World for Animals during an operation that removed 67 dogs from a dog-meat farm. The rescue brought the farm international coverage and began the much longer process of treating, fostering and finding homes for the dogs.

Among the many dogs Miley Cyrus has adopted is Barbie, a beagle released from laboratory use and rehomed through the Beagle Freedom Project. Cyrus has also taken in dogs found abandoned or waiting in shelters. Happy was discovered near a Walmart in 2012, while Angel joined the family after the death of Cyrus’s pit bull Mary Jane.

Dogs from laboratories, breeding facilities and the meat trade may have little experience of an ordinary home. Stairs, household appliances, grass and even open space can be unfamiliar. The adoption announcement is only the beginning; the quieter work comes afterwards.

Funding the people already doing the work

Ricky Gervais has supported animal rescue largely through fundraising and public advocacy. He is a patron of All Dogs Matter, one of the organisations that benefited when £1.91 million from his Armageddon tour was divided among animal charities.

His subsequent Mortality tour raised a further £2.43 million, shared by 22 animal organisations. The recipients included charities caring for dogs as well as wildlife and primates.

For smaller organisations, a share of that money can cover kennel costs, veterinary treatment, transport or the rehabilitation of animals who will need months of care before they can be rehomed. Much of rescue work happens out of public view, but it is also where donations are most quickly spent.

What happens after the post

A famous adoption will not resolve overcrowding in shelters. Campaigns cannot take the place of reliable funding, responsible breeding laws or veterinary care that people can afford. They can, however, affect what a very large audience sees.

Somebody notices Dodger and considers visiting a shelter. A viewer watches Paul O’Grady fall for an elderly dog and becomes less fixed on adopting a puppy. Dave Bautista’s dogs may prompt somebody to question what they think they know about pit bulls. Elsewhere, a tour donation pays an urgent veterinary bill at a rescue most of the audience will never hear about.

The celebrity may bring people to the story. What matters is where they look next.