Power Pets: How a Photo Shoot Led Remy Bond to Fulfill Her Dream of Adopting a Pig

Billboard’s Power Pets is a feature focusing on musicians’ best friends — no, not the humans, but the furry (and some scaly and feathery!) ones who bring extra joy and companionship to artists. Celebrities will be sharing sweet details about their beloved pets and how their furbabies enrich their lives. For the fifth story in the series, we talked to singer Remy Bond.

Some little girls watch movies and dream of growing up to become princesses. But Remy Bond? She dreamed of one day having her own pet pig, just like Brittany Murphy’s character Molly in the 2003 dramedy Uptown Girls — and now, she does.

It all started with a Rolling Stone photo shoot, for which the dream-pop singer also borrowed a dress that late star Brittany Murphy wore in the film. “I was like, ‘This is the perfect time for me to get the pig I’ve always wanted,” Bond tells Billboard of acquiring her porcine pet in March or April. “I didn’t really tell anyone at the shoot that I was going to be bringing a pig … so I just showed up with Moo.” (Moo is named after the pig in Uptown Girls, Mu.)

“It was really funny, because I didn’t know how much pigs squealed when you pick them up, so everyone at the Rolling Stone shoot was just, like, chasing her and too scared to touch her,” laughs the artist, who was named to Billboard‘s 21 Under 21 list this year. “But I wish I had gotten her earlier, because then [I’d have known] every pig squeals when you pick them up.”

While Moo was tiny — about 4 pounds, Bond estimates — and easy to pick up at the time, she says that tiny phase didn’t last long. “She’s fat as f–k!” the musician exclaims. “Every time I feed her, she doubles in size. I’m too scared to weigh her now.”

But for the rising singer-songwriter, whose “Summer Song” has surpassed 20 million streams on Spotify, that’s just fine. “I don’t really want a teacup pig,” she explains. “I don’t know, it felt really inhumane … I didn’t want to get like, a puppy mill [pig]. … I’m like, ‘They don’t even stay small anyways, so like, I might as well just get a normal pig that you know would have been eaten if not for me, I guess.”

As Bond tells it, her assistant found Moo at a farm nearby. “We convinced them to, like, lend us the pig,” she explains. “Then were like, we kind of just want to keep her, so that’s how I ended up with her.”

The singer did say there was a small adoption fee of about $100, which she considers a bargain. According to Nationwide Pet Insurance, a teacup pig can cost up to $6,500, and can weigh up to 200 pounds once they’ve fully matured.

Like many musicians’ beloved pets, Bond says that Moo has found herself in the recording studio. “The day we got her, we brought her to a studio,” the singer shares, and producers Jason Evigan and Mark Schick said they would keep her. “They didn’t believe I’d actually follow through with bringing her to the studio, so when I showed up with her, everyone freaked out.”

Bond shares that though Moo caused a bit of trouble when she tried chewing on the various cables in the studio, the pig got to contribute to some music as well. “She’s actually on [an unreleased] song,” the singer teases. “We sampled her.”

As for those considering getting a cute little pig as a pet — and many celebs have, including George Clooney, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande and Jelly Roll — Bond has some advice: “Probably don’t get a pig.”

Much as she loves Moo, the musicians says, “Pigs are hard.” Bond reveals that Moo — who was living on her balcony for a bit — requires a trough, just like the pigs on a farm. And the singer thought at times that someone had broken into her home, but turns out it was Moo “running around feral upstairs” and creating a mess.

Chaos and squealing aside, Bond says she adores Moo. “I feel like I was just like, ‘This is my girl. I’m gonna like, feed her and take care of her,’” she shares. “She’s kind of just like a dog, except, like, super messy, and literally won’t let me take her on a walk. I’ve tried so many times. She just like, keeps squealing!”

“She’s been the perfect addition to my home,” Bond gushes. “I could not imagine my life without her!”