Salma Hayek is one of the most recognized and known actresses in the world. Known for her performances in the films Frida, Dogma, Desperado, and From Dusk Till Down among others. She is a recipient of an Academy Award nomination for her role as Frida Kahlo in the biopic Frida, making her the first Mexican actress to be nominated for an Oscar.
Hayek is also known for her love for animals. She has more than thirty pets in her house and has rescued multiple animals over the years. She has animals ranging from owls, and dogs, to horses, chickens, and geese. In fact, her penchant for rescuing animals got to her husband François-Henri Pinault so bad that he screamed at her when he saw a duck in their home.
Salma Hayek’s Love For Animals
Actress Salma Hayek is known for being one of the few Latinx actors to make it across the border and make a mark in Hollywood. She started her career as a telenovela star in Mexico before venturing into the USA to try her hand in Hollywood. Despite getting only stereotypical roles for Mexicans, she finally had her breakthrough in Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado.
She then went on to star in a number of films such as Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, where she shared screen space with George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino, and the romantic comedy Fools Rush In with FRIENDS star Matthew Perry. She earned an Academy Award nomination for Frida, becoming the first Mexican actress to achieve that feat.
In recent years, Salma Hayek has limited her on-screen appearances and has been taking care of her domestic life. She is married to billionaire François-Henri Pinault and spends her time in activism and philanthropy. She is also a massive animal-lover and has reduced and adopted over thirty animals which she houses at her home in LA.
One of her most prized pets is the owl Kering, which she adopted in 2021. She reportedly gifted it to her husband for Valentine’s Day but was met with a sarcastic remark. She said to People Magazine,
“I gave it to my husband as a Valentine’s present and named her Kering because that’s the name of his company and their symbol of the owl. And he was like, ‘Well, thank you, but I know this is your own present for yourself.'”
She also has a dog named Lobito, an Alpaca named Elliott, a rabbit named Lullaby, and multiple cats with one being a Bengal cat.
Salma Hayek’s Duck Visitor Caused A Fight With Her Husband
Salma Hayek has close to fifty animals in her huge estate, which includes parrots, dogs, cats, alpacas, owls, and rabbits. So naturally, her husband, Kering Corporation CEO François-Henri Pinault is tired of her penchant for adopting and rescuing multiple animals. The actress has mentioned multiple times how much he hates her habit.
Hayek reportedly once tried to soften the blow of adopting yet another dog (on top of the ten she already had) and telling it to her husband by pretending that she was having an affair. But the French billionaire reportedly caught it beforehand and her plans went down the drain. However, he reportedly was up to his wits end when he saw an unknown visitor in their house.
Salma Hayek revealed in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that her husband once found a duck who had wandered into the house through the chimney and mistook it to be another rescue by Hayek. He reportedly started screaming and gave her an ultimatum,
“He goes, ‘Oh, no, that’s it! This is where we draw the line! This is like another level of crazy! I found you out! I found what you were hiding in the –!’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’‘I found the dog hiding in the thing.’ I said, ‘I don’t have any extra dogs. I haven’t picked up any dogs.’…Because he’s French and it sounded the same. Finally, he said it in French. Canard. And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t have a duck. I don’t have a duck!’. ‘Yes, you do! Stop lying! God knows how long you’ve had that in there!’…And on this armoire there he is, a duck inside my house.”
The couple then realized that it was a duck that had come in from the chimney and then even though they tried to let it go, it would not leave. Hence, Salma Hayek ended up feeding the duck some lettuce.
