Bloom had been singing to animals for almost five years before anyone asked him to cross the world to do it. The French musician boarded a series of planes on day one, barely adjusted to a morning he admitted he was not used to seeing anymore, and landed in New Zealand roughly 34 hours later, jet-lagged and carrying a pink guitar. What Tim, the man who sent the invitation, wanted was simple enough on paper: a musician who connects with animals, a fundraiser that needed a spark, and a group of lions living out their final years on a property where no one would ever pay admission to see them again. Help Support the Lions here https://lionhearts.co.nz/
Tim had spotted Bloom on Instagram and, by his own telling, just messaged him. Bloom said yes. The clinching detail, Tim later admitted on air, was a promise of a visit to Hobbiton.
The morning the lions heard a pink guitar
The lion enclosure on day two was not an instant triumph. Bloom had hoped especially for two brothers he had been quietly counting on, but they stayed uneasy. Abdullah, one of the males, kept retreating from the guitar as though he had decided the bright pink instrument was some kind of weapon. A lioness named Cleo was another matter entirely. She settled, listened, and by the time the session ended Bloom said he had completely fallen in love with her. Reflecting on the experience for a New Zealand television crew that had shown up at 7 sharp, he put the lesson plainly: ‘When I was singing for human beings, I wasn’t really connecting. I was more in my bubble, scared of what they might think. With animals, I know it’s super important to actually share something with them.’
After the singing came a surprise. Staff produced syringes filled with pet milk, a lactose-free formula available at supermarkets, and Bloom fed the lions alongside their caregivers. Nobody had mentioned the two cows on the property either. When they appeared, Bloom walked over and sang for them too, because, as he put it, it was part of all that he needed to be.
The Lionheart project behind the visit is built around a single idea: that anyone who helps a lion is a lionheart. The facility costs 500 dollars a day to run, the lions will live there for the rest of their natural lives with their existing caregivers, and the property is rent-free. When the lions are gone, Tim explained, the facility will shift to elderly care for other animals.
Hobbiton, a Manuka wood chew, and a long way home
The radio circuit the next morning at 6:30 gave way to Hobbiton in the afternoon. A guide explained that the set was rebuilt permanently after the original production wrapped, on a direct request from the landowner to make it real and lasting. The fruit trees are genuine. Teams of gardeners tend the property year-round. Bloom noted that Peter Jackson is, by all accounts, a crazy detail guy, and the place proved it.
On the last day, before leaving for the airport, Bloom stopped into a shop to find something for his rescue dog Lassie, two months in his care and his first pet ever after a childhood of parental refusals. He settled on a medium Manuka wood chew, a dense local hardwood that does not splinter.
The guitar Abdullah kept running from
The pink guitar is still undefeated against cows, swans, and one very relaxed lioness named Cleo. Abdullah remains unconvinced.
The 34-hour journey that started before dawn ended with a Manuka chew tucked into a bag for a dog in France, a fundraising website newly live at lionhearts.co.nz, and at least one lion who, for a few minutes on a New Zealand afternoon, sat very still and listened.
