Zoë Kravitz and Lisa Bonet’s Snake Drama in Taylor Swift’s LA Home: The Wildfire Stay That Got Real
Riley Carter here. Okay, but like… why is this a thing? Let’s unpack it without trying too hard.
Zoë Kravitz revealed that she and her mother, Lisa Bonet, nearly lost the family snake Orpheus inside Taylor Swift’s Los Angeles home during a temporary stay while wildfires swept the city earlier in 2025. The anecdote, shared by Kravitz on the August 12 episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, reads like a politely chaotic chapter in modern celebrity friendship: evacuation, vintage architecture, and an escaped reptile that refused to cooperate.
According to Kravitz, she and Bonet stayed at Swift’s 1930s-style house for about two weeks while the fires created unsafe conditions elsewhere in L.A. Kravitz emphasized her instinct to “leave places better than I found them,” so she was tidying up when Bonet casually mentioned that Orpheus had wriggled free after being put down for a moment. The snake had slipped into a tight gap in a bathroom corner next to a built-in banquette, and attempts to coax it out went nowhere.
After a failed extraction attempt—Bonet had been crouched in the corner holding the snake’s tail—the pair escalated the situation by calling the house manager. The manager’s blunt suggestion was to remove the banquette to retrieve Orpheus. Kravitz described the scene: they were ripping up tile and scratching walls, essentially dismantling a portion of Swift’s bathroom in order to rescue the reptile. Financial responsibility was no debate; Kravitz told the manager she would cover repairs and begged for discretion until the damage was fixed.
Here’s the punchline: Kravitz thought she’d managed the crisis quietly, only to find that Swift already knew. When Kravitz called Swift to “talk about something,” Swift cut to the chase and referenced the damaged bathroom and the near-miss with the snake. The exchange underscores a couple of frank truths about celebrity downtime: first, high-profile houses are not immune to very human mishaps, and second, friends in this orbit are usually clued in through staff even when discretion is requested.
This episode also offers a little context about how celebrities shelter during emergencies. Staying with a friend when wildfires threaten your area is both practical and intimate; it can unspool into awkward domestic scenes that most fans only imagine. Kravitz’s description of Swift’s house as a preserved 1930s home helps explain why she was mortified by the damage and why the fix-it, hush-hush approach felt urgent.
It’s also a small window into Kravitz and Bonet’s dynamic: resourceful, unflappable enough to tear up tile when required, and willing to interrupt a friend’s carefully curated space to solve a problem. For Swift’s part, her immediate knowledge of the incident suggests house staff communication runs tight, and also that celebrity friendships often involve practical trust—letting someone stay in a treasured property during a crisis.
All told, the Orpheus incident is an oddly charming celebrity story: it combines emergency practicality, architectural angst, and an animal escape that ended in temporary destruction and eventual accountability. It’s one of those moments that humanizes famous people without being scandalous—just a weird domestic emergency involving a snake and a 1930s bathroom.
Okay cool, so like, yeah, that happened.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! News, Late Night with Seth Meyers
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
