Yahoo News Meet Leslie Jordan's Cats, Which the Actor Helped Save After a 'Hardscrabble Upbringing'
Leslie Jordan is the new star of Instagram!
The Will & Grace actor has been sharing hilarious videos and storytimes to his more than 1 million followers as he socially distances in Chattanooga, Tennessee — and the actor introduced a few of his formerly stray cats to PEOPLE Now!
With the help of local agency Chattaneuter, “our feisty quarantine uncle,” as the Washington Post named Jordan, says he and his family have helped his neighborhood become free of feral cats.
“We have with us several of the kitties from over the years, and I’d like to tell the story on each kitty,” the 64-year-old says in the exclusive video. “Now, some of them are kind of feral, so we may not be able to get very close, but let’s go looking for kitties!”
Jordan starts by introducing “queen bee” Oreo, who’s been with Jordan’s family for nearly a decade.
Vivien Killilea/Getty Leslie Jordan
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“My goodness gracious,” he says as the cat scurries away. “We’ve had Oreo since my sisters were living in Dana Point, and I’m telling you it was like 10 years ago, and there was a kitten under the house and the neighbors came running. And my sister, one of them, put some food, we couldn’t get that kitten out. Well, all of a sudden my sister walked away and here came Oreo, this little bitty thing.”
Though he warned her sister to not keep the kitten since they would move to Tennessee, she kept Oreo anyway, and she’s been with the family ever since.
“That’s the story of Oreo,” he says. “She’s still here. We had to put butter on her paws and move her across the country. Oh, she’s still hounding us!”
Jordan’s next cat Lucy is named after someone very special. His family wasn’t sure quite about the cat’s sex right away, though.
“When you go to Chattaneuter to have them fixed, they want the boys on one day and girls on one day, so we had a whole litter full,” he says. “Well, we took her, what we thought was a he, on the boy day. They said, ‘No, this is a girl!’”
“So we named her Lucille after my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who’s the best cook in all of Hamilton County,” he continues. “Her red velvet cake could make a Pentecostal put on lipstick! Tell’ em, Lucy, tell’ em about your namesake Lucille.”
Jordan’s orange tabbies Opie and Archie are “miracle kittens” — but the cats have neighbor Ginger to play with (even if the kitten acts like it lives with them).
Stray Cat. #porchswing #straykittens #tennesseerainstorm
A post shared by Leslie Jordan (@thelesliejordan) on Mar 14, 2020 at 11:29am PDT
“They had a hardscrabble upbringing, but look, and there’s Ginger down the street [who] thinks she lives here,” Jordan says as he plays with one of his kitties. “She comes down here [and] expects us to feed her. Well, she needs to go home. But anyway look, look at him playing. His little love bite, little love bite.”
And then there’s Spanky, whose poor tail had to be amputated due to an unclear accident.
“Well here I am in the backyard with, can you see Spanky?” he says as the cat lies down under a shrub. “He had a hardscrabble upbringing and then bless his heart, the raccoon bit his tail off. We had to have it amputated. Either the raccoon bit it off or it got it stuck in a fence, we don’t know. But he won’t stand up to let you see. He has a little bobtail. That’s Spanky.”
As Jordan celebrates his digital following milestone and his casting in Fox show Call Me Kat starring Mayim Bialik, he has his kitties to share the success.
“These cats keep looking at us like why are y’all here so much?” he says to end the clip. “Go somewhere! Bye-bye!”
