Billie Holiday kept two chihuahuas. Her first was Chiquita, who would have her nails done in the same color as Billie’s, and for whom Billie personally knitted a sweater.
But it was Pepe given to her by Ava Gardner, whom she had longest and loved best. He became her primary companion in her last days of drug addiction. She kept him with her even at nightclubs or on stage, even in church, and insisted restaurant owners permit him at the table. She got away with it because, well, she was Billie Holiday.
Lena Horne recalled that when the two jazz divas were together, they talked mainly about Billie’s dogs. “She was just too sensitive to survive,” Horne recalled. “The thing I remember talking to her about most were her dogs; her animals were really her only trusted friends.”
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