On the original series of My Strange Addiction, we met Lisa, a 43-year-old from Michigan who was a proud cat mama. She first sampled fur as a tasty treat 15 years before the show aired, but after recently adopting a new kitten, she developed a craving for cat hair that she just couldn’t shake. As if that wasn’t quirky enough, Lisa’s addiction became so severe that she couldn’t go more than two hours without the hairy snack.
Lisa picks the hair samples right off of her unwilling furry participants, rolling the hair into balls then chewing and sucking on the fur. Sometimes, she goes full cat mama mode and licks the hair right off of the cat, grooming her pets the same way they do to each other. Lisa cited the fluffy flavor as something that kept her coming back for more.
The show calculated that she must have ingested around 3,200 hairballs in her lifetime – although she claims she has never coughed one up like a cat does. Naturally, Lisa’s family and friends were concerned about the potential long-term health effects of her addiction – particularly what those hairballs could do to a human stomach not made for ingesting fur. Lisa, however, was adamant that her unusual habit was good for her, and she’s never had any gastrointestinal distress.
Lisa sat down with doctors and addiction experts, who warned her about the consequences of her behavior – including severe indigestion, or potentially fatal stomach bleeds and bowel obstructions. A doctor even showed her medical pictures of stomachs full of hair to dissuade her from her habit, warning that her bowel could rupture.
10 years on, Lisa has returned to My Strange Addiction in the series’ revival, My Strange Addiction: Still Addicted? Despite the deadly warnings, Lisa is not only still addicted, but is eating more cat hair than ever. On the original show, Lisa had one cat, but now has five black and white cats to groom and eat hair from.
Despite some reluctance from her pets, Lisa grooms her cats on a daily basis – when they allow her to. No longer claiming the health benefits of the habit as she had previously, Lisa now preaches the social benefits of grooming her cats.
As she never had or wanted children of her own, Lisa claims grooming her cats is a form of parental love, as mother cats lick their kittens in a similar way. As for the health concerns, Lisa maintains that everything enjoyable is bad for you, and this is the guilty pleasure she indulges in.