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Justin Bieber's Auctioned-Off Pet Snake Gets New Home—but Winning Bidder Is Spewing Venom

Pop star brought his baby boa on the red carpet, but the man who won the creature says he's disgusted singer would use "living creatures as a fashion accessory"

By Marcus Mulick, Alexis L. Loinaz Mar 08, 2012 9:38 PMTags
Justin Bieber Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

While showbiz is filled with slithering snakes, Justin Bieber clearly isn't afraid—he kept one as a pet!

Biebs memorably brought his baby albino boa constrictor Johnson to last year's MTV Video Music Awards and then auctioned him off for charity last fall.

The cheekily named creature has since found new digs, but Johnson's winning bidder has some pretty biting things to say about the pop star and his decision to give the little guy away…

"I found it really disgusting that celebrities like Bieber would stoop to a level of using living creatures as a fashion accessory and then so easily discard it," Michael Kronick tells E! News exclusively. 

Kronick, owner of Startifacts.com, won Johnson at the charity auction—which raised funds for Pencils of Promise—but then donated him to the Reptile & Amphibian Discovery Zoo in Owatonna, Minn. The snake arrived last week and is already on display.

"I am a huge pet and animal lover and was amazed that Mr. Bieber would actually auction off his own personal pet," he continues.

Kronick bid on the pet snake so he could donate it to a zoo. "I wanted to make sure the snake would be well taken care of for the rest of his life," he explains. "I'm very pleased where Johnson now resides."

And so is the zoo, which plans to give the snake the star treatment.

Lead zookeeper Barry Benjamin tells E! News, "Soon he will have a plaque letting people know that he was Justin Bieber's pet snake."

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Johnson is currently being handled by zoo employees to make sure he gets used to all the new attention from strangers. 

"We plan on customers having a photo opportunity with Johnson," Benjamin says. He thinks the snake will be a hit with kids, who are the zoo's main customers.

And will the pet's name be changed to make it, um, more kid-friendly?

"We actually find the name entertaining," Benjamin says with a laugh. "I mean, it is a male. I'm hoping the kids are too young to understand the joke."

Well, at least that's one happy ending to a Bieber animal story. Don't get us started on beavers—those lead to nasty Bieber lawsuits!