(WHTM) – Actor Kevin Bacon is reacting to the news that a Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, pig with whom he shares a name has been on the run for weeks.
In a Threads post over the weekend, the Golden Globe-winning actor, who is also a Pennsylvania native, said “Bring Kevin Bacon home.”
According to owner Chelsea Rumbaugh, the pig Kevin Bacon escaped on Oct. 14, less than 24 hours after he arrived at his new home with the family.
He’s returned home several times for food but hasn’t been caught despite daily attempts by Rumbaugh and neighbors.
“He kept looking up and seeing me. But every time previous, he would just run when he saw a person,” Rumbaugh said. “Anytime we have a positive interaction and he walks away instead of running away, that’s good. In our book, that means he still feels safe here.”
Positive interactions and feeling safe at Rumbaugh’s home go beyond pigs — yes, plural. She and her husband, Mike, have three other piglets among 17 animals in all at their rural home.
“Our goal is to one day have a pig sanctuary where we can offer therapy sessions or even just visits for children and adults who are struggling with PTSD or any kind of neurodivergence,” Rumbaugh said, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder.
But their shorter-term goal is to bring home the pig Kevin Bacon with a combination of affection — like the kind evident in Friday’s close encounter between Rumbaugh and the pig — and a redesigned enclosure with a trap.
Rumbaugh and her family aren’t animal novices. Still, they may have gotten more than they bargained for with Kevin Bacon.
The pig’s former owner listed a Juliana pig — a breed often marketed as “miniature” — for sale for $50, but when the family went to see him and saw his size, they fell in love with him anyway.
“To say we were not prepared for a 200-pound pig to get loose — yeah, that would be dead on,” Rumbaugh said.
Kevin Bacon’s former owner named him. Rumbaugh hadn’t gotten around to deciding whether to change the name before he escaped. And now that he’s famous, she definitely won’t change it.
Anyway, she said, the name fits well in a home where the other piglets have such names as “Two Hock” and “Salt and Porker.”
