Blake Shelton's had some unusual animal friends, from the turkey named Turkey which died in 2003 to the food thief opossum he spoke about fondly during a 2021 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Shelton's kinship with more than cats, dogs, horses and other more typical types of pets dates back to at least his childhood experience with a domesticated raccoon named Seagram.
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During an interview with CMT that's gained traction on TikTok, Shelton told a story about how at age 13, he, Seagram and a dog named Grizzly ended up on the cover of his hometown newspaper in Ada, Okla.
@cmt #BlakeShelton ? racoons ?
"I had a buddy named Eric, and I was walking down the street to his house," Shelton said. "I was walking with my raccoon and dog, and this lady [in a car] pulled over. At that age, I remembered stranger danger, right? Like, 'What is this woman?' She pulled out and she had a camera and she goes, 'I work for the Ada Evening News, and I've just never seen this. Is that animal with you? Is that raccoon, like, wild? Does it just follow [you]?' I said, 'No, that's my pet.' So, she took a couple of pictures. I forgot to tell my mom, and in the next day or two, this picture came out on the cover of the newspaper of me and my raccoon."
Shelton brought along a photocopy from the newspaper, which shows him draping Seagram on the back of Grizzly.
In a hilarious "25 Things You Didn't Know About Me" submission to US Weekly from 2010, Shelton revealed that at the time, he'd had three different domesticated raccoons. No word on whether the other two ever made the front page.
