Claim:
In October 2025, rock singer Steven Tyler pledged $1 million to build a “cutting-edge cat rescue and rehabilitation center.”
Rating:
In October 2025, a rumor circulated online that Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler pledged $1 million to build a cat rescue and rehabilitation center.
“This won’t just be a shelter,” Tyler said, according to one Facebook post (archived). “It’ll be a sanctuary — a place where music, art, and compassion come together to heal.” The full post read:
BREAKING: Steven Tyler Launches $1 Million Cat Rescue Sanctuary
Rock legend Steven Tyler, the electrifying frontman of Aerosmith, has pledged $1 million to build a cutting-edge cat rescue and rehabilitation center — a project already stirring hearts before construction has even begun.
Long known for his wild stage energy and larger-than-life persona, Tyler has quietly nurtured a lifelong love for cats, often making anonymous donations to animal causes. Now, he’s stepping into the spotlight for a mission close to his heart. During a recent visit to the proposed site in a quiet suburban neighborhood, witnesses described the rock star kneeling beside injured cats, gently petting them as if greeting old friends.
“This won’t just be a shelter,” Tyler said. “It’ll be a sanctuary — a place where music, art, and compassion come together to heal.”
The claim also spread to other Facebook accounts and YouTube (archived). Dozens of Snopes readers searched the site for answers.
The claim was false. There was no evidence that Tyler publicly pledged $1 million to build a cat rescue. Rather, the claim originated with the Facebook page Rock Revival 60s-90s, a page that apparently uses artificial intelligence to create its images.
While the post claimed “witnesses described the rock star kneeling beside injured cats, gently petting them as if greeting old friends,” a Google search of the keywords “Steven Tyler cat sanctuary” revealed no credible reports of this event taking place. Top results were repeated social posts of the same claim or fact-checks debunking the claim – no reputable news outlet reported the claim as fact, which would have happened if it were true.
(Google.com)
A scan of Tyler’s social media pages also revealed no details related to launching a cat sanctuary.
The Rock Revival 60s-90s Facebook page displayed numerous additional posts about Tyler and Aerosmith containing fictional stories and/or AI-generated images. These tales all very much resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on a post claiming Tyler invited an elderly woman to sing onstage at a concert.
