Christian the Lion

Christian the Lion is a viral clip edited from a 1971 documentary, showing a lion cautiously approach his former carers, John Rendall and Anthony “Ace” Bourke, before recognizing them, leaping playfully onto them and standing on his hind legs to embrace their shoulders and nuzzle their faces. The documentary also shows lionesses Mona and Lisa and a foster cub named Supercub welcoming the men; circulating versions commonly accompany the reunion with a happy-sad song.

Born in captivity in 1969, Christian was purchased from Harrods and raised in London by Rendall and Bourke before conservationist George Adamson reintegrated him into the wild at Kenya’s Kora National Reserve. Despite setbacks in the developing pride, Christian became its head over the course of a year, and the filmed reunion took place about a year after his release. Bill Travers and James Hill wrote, produced and directed the two documentaries, The Lion from Worlds End and Christian the Lion; Rendall and Bourke were the reunion participants, not the filmmakers.

An edited clip of the 1971 reunion appeared on an unnamed fan website in 2002, an early online posting described by both Know Your Meme and the Wikipedia account.

Rendall also described a separate, largely unfilmed reunion: some newspaper reports placed it in 1974, while George Adamson dated it to January 1972. By that visit, Christian was defending his own pride and had cubs.

From the fan website, the clip passed to a MySpace user and then to YouTube, where it became a worldwide viral video more than three decades after the reunion. Know Your Meme links its wider takeoff to YouTube and its emotional appeal, while describing numerous re-uploads and re-edits whose footage remained essentially unchanged.

Variations included a version with a different soundtrack and additional information, a Christian the Lion spoof, and a re-edit with an alternate ending.

Media coverage after the clip went viral included interviews with Rendall and Bourke about their experiences with Christian, an MSNBC report on the video’s newfound fame, and appearances on The View and Today. Know Your Meme notes that the host cried in the Today segment.

In the 2000s, Coronation Fund Managers recreated Christian’s London upbringing, relocation to the African wild and reunion with Rendall and Bourke in a television commercial for its “Trust is Earned” campaign. Conceived by FoxP2 and directed by Mike Middleton, the advertisement used the story as a metaphor for building long-term trust rather than simply re-uploading the documentary excerpt.

Following the story’s spread on YouTube, Rendall and Bourke revised and republished A Lion Called Christian in 2009, adding accounts of return visits to Kenya presented as taking place in 1971 and 1972. The two original documentaries were also combined on a Born Free Foundation DVD, Christian – the Lion at World’s End, which included Blink Films’ separate 45-minute documentary A Lion Called Christian, also shown on Animal Planet.

In September 2008, Sony Pictures announced interest in obtaining feature-film rights to Christian’s story, a proposed adaptation rather than a completed production. Other extensions included the 2010 children’s book Christian, the Hugging Lion and an appearance on Animal Planet’s Untamed & Uncut; in 2021, Emma Towers-Evans drew the official portrait Uhuru in support of conservation charities.

The clip’s defining contrast is the shift from the lion’s cautious approach to a playful embrace, with his front legs wrapped around the men’s shoulders. Commonly added happy-sad music accompanies that change, while re-uploads and re-edits repeat essentially the same reunion footage.