We may have just discovered the Cruella-style origin story to Harry Styles’s succession of feather boas at the Grammys earlier this year. In a clip from today’s episode of The Ellen Show, Salma Hayek called in from London to promote The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, but mostly to talk about her pet rescue owl, Kering. Hayek, being the gorgeous and wise sorceress that she is, has a special bond with Kering. When her husband is out of town, “she sleeps with me. And what happens is eventually I go to sleep and she just keeps flying around the room. She comes and snuggles before. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she lands on my head. It’s a little bit jarring, but I’m kind of used to it. The worst is when the feet come out of the sheaths and she thinks that your toes are mice, and she flies in and grabs them.â€
Outsiders, however, must be initiated into the way of the owl. “One time, there was a very important celebrity — I will not say his name — and he was really excited about the owl and was hoping that the owl would go on his head because it was on me,†Hayek recounts. “He was like, Oh, I need an owl in my life. How do you do that? And the minute he least expected it, it came on his head — but then she did the thing, and this thing came out. This ball of rat hair was on his head.†That very important person? Was none other than Harry Styles. “He was super-cool, by the way. Even with that happening.†Is that the secret to Styles’s perfect hair? Rat vom? What a tip.