MMA Fighter Kohl Laren Brings Social Media Sensation Opossum Daisy to TMZ Office

Welcome inside the TMZ newsroom. This is a first. I've done a lot of interviews here at TMZ, but we've had a lot of MMA fighters, Cole, but we've never had a possum here and now we do. This is so cool. Cole Lahren and his adorable pet possum, Daisy, in the building here today. Okay, so Cole, you're an MMA fighter. Yes. And you have gotten a lot of attention recently because you have got this adorable and unique pet, Daisy. Yes. So, I mean, I'm sure people have got a million questions here. Tell us about her, how you got Daisy, why you got Daisy. Give us all the details. Yeah, so I started helping possums. I just found one little possum in Seal Beach when I was riding my bike. I took it into a bush. It was by itself, teeny tiny. When I set it down, I was like, oh, I don't know if you're going to live if I leave you here. I couldn't do that. The little possum looked at me and I was sitting there. I was like, all right, you're coming with me. I started taking care of this thing. I realized I got myself into something huge because it had metabolic bone disease, which is a pretty common disease for them. They don't get enough calcium and they die from it. They get tremors, they get paralyzed, all that kind of stuff. After I reached out to a ton of people, I found out that I actually had access to different wildlife rehab people and vets as well. They just guided me through the process because they said, look, if you take this possum anywhere, they're going to euthanize it because it's so advanced where it's at. Long story short, it made a full recovery and ended up getting released on its own. I was on a phone call with a buddy, a buddy's mom. My buddy got in, something traumatic happened. Mom's calling me going through stuff. His name is Rodrigo. Rodrigo took off. I was like, well, I guess it was time. He did his thing. He did what possums do and just took off. I was like, okay, cool. In the process of taking care of the little guy, I was documenting it. I was posting on my story and stuff. People were following along because it was cool. He was making advancements as he went. People started reaching out to me like, yo, I found one on the side of the road. There was one baby left. Can you take care of it? It would have three broken legs and all kinds of stuff. I was taking it to different vets. This is the fifth possum this season that I've taken care of. I've had some really cool success doing it. It's become something that I really care about. I learned a lot about these critters. Somebody reached out to me and was like, yo, I have a neighbor on a farm that has horses. They were killing the possums because they can be detrimental to the horse. I was like, well, tell him to trap it and take it somewhere else or whatever. He ended up killing all the possums. This little one was the only one that was left hiding in their backyard. They hit me up and were like, will you take care of her? I was like, for sure. I gave her a once over when I got her. She didn't seem to have any injuries, but she was so teeny tiny. I was explaining before, if you found a little baby, you wouldn't just let it. You would hold it and take care of it. Same thing with her. I just held her and she took to me immediately. It got to a point where she would be with me when I was brushing my teeth. She would be with me. She hangs out with me all night. Even when she's running around doing her thing, she makes her way back to me and I take care of her and I love on her. She just loves being with me. That is so cool. Is there something that people misunderstand about the animal? It's a polarizing thing, right? Some people are like, adorable lover, and then some people are scared. Because it's not a traditional pet, as you know. She's polarizing. She's adorable. Yeah, she's super polarizing. A lot of people love raccoons and things like that, right? That seems to be a pretty popular thing. I think the reason people have gravitated in that direction is because when you view something like a raccoon or whatever, you don't think of the health concerns around them because they carry themselves with a lot of energy and whatnot. When you see them, they just open their mouth and there's all these teeth. That's them silent screaming. They don't have a mean bone in their body. They're the sweetest little things. They have a ton of personality. They aren't a vector for rabies by any means. That's one of the main things why people get their raccoons confiscated and things like that because it can be a serious health risk. Let's say if they were sick. These guys are immune to pretty much everything, like snakes, all kinds of stuff. It's extremely rare to come across a possum that has rabies. They have to have a serious health condition for that to be a possibility. They're just got a really bad rap as far as they're in the trash. They're opportunists. They look scary. They got big, scary teeth. Honestly, they have the hardware of a rat. It's like they look like a rat and people don't know what they are, so they treat them like rats, but they're not by any means. They're sweet little marsupials. They're pretty much immune to everything. You're doing more for possums than anybody ever has before just by this. You're getting a lot of attention on social media. Yeah. It's cool. I wanted to document her because when I found this vet that was helping me take care of these different possums and attempt to release if they were able to. They could have had a couple that did not. They died. They didn't make it. Too many injuries and whatnot, but we tried. When I was having this, building this connection with this vet and a community of people that take care of these guys, I was learning that Daisy is unique in the sense where she's extremely friendly. She wants to be held and she wants to be cuddled. You can see I was holding her like a baby a second ago. She just loves it. She loves her belly scratched. She just wants to cuddle. Her being a good advocate for the other possums, a good ambassador for them, is the main reason why my vet was like, you need to share this. I'm having such a good time with her. I was like, it'll be cool just to put it out there, these little cute pieces of her. Within a month, like 100,000 people started following her page. I didn't realize it would turn into that. I had no idea. I'm sure. How could you? It's such a unique thing. Yeah, I had no idea. It's interesting too, because like you said, you picture them trolling in the garbage for food to hear that she wants to lay with you, cuddle with you, follow you around, like to be around. It sounds like any other house pet, like a dog. 100%. The way I describe them is somewhere between a cat and a dog when it comes to their interactions with people. They have this really cool thing where if she's on her own, she's doing her thing, she's feeling hyper-independent right now, she's exploring, she's like a cat. As soon as she gets out of that phase, she ran on her cat wheel, she climbed all of her stuff. She's like, all right, can you come hold me? Or she'll come find me if I'm laying in bed. She'll crawl under the covers and just curl up in my armpit and just pass out. I'm like, dude, she snores. I'm like, she's the cutest thing on the planet. I love that. I know she had a little air tag on her just in case to make sure you couldn't find her. 100%. That was a learning lesson on my end from the very first possum. They are super quiet. Out of all the possums, I've lost a possum in a room with nothing in it. It took me four hours to find it. I was like, where are you? It's crazy how good they are at hiding. It's their main skill. Like I said, opportunist, but they hide. Nocturnal animals, they know how to hide. They're completely defenseless. They will disappear. The air tag helps me make sure that I can keep her safe. If she does take off somewhere, I just ping her. I know you're in your early 30s, so you can fight for a while longer. Do you want to be more involved in this in the future? Help more animals? What's the idea? Yeah, 100%. I reached out to local rehabbers, and I found that there's two in my area. They work specifically with possums. They're pretty full as far as their care goes right now. They don't think they can take any more on right now. My goal was to try and learn as much about them as humanly possible, take care of them. While I'm using my platform now, I guess at this point, to be like, be kind to critters. They're super cool. I started calling different places. I was calling around different departments, just trying to figure out how I can become more involved with not just a possum, but other animals. Because I was so misled as a kid about what a possum is. I'm like, oh, careful. They're dirty. They're this. They're that. I was so blown away by how 180 the actual experience was. They're cleaning themselves. She's cleaning herself right now. Cleaning your hands and everything. 100%. I had the exact opposite experience. I just dug in as much as I could to find out what the steps are to become a rehabber. It's a tedious process. As I'm a professional fighter, I dedicate all my time really to my craft. However, when it's done, I do know that it's something I really want to invest a lot more time into. I don't know if it's going to be a full-time thing, but I'm sure it'll demand that amount of time at first. I've always just been interested in animals, period, but this has definitely changed the trajectory of where I see my involvement going. It's awesome. Completely changed my perspective on the animal. I'm sure you've done that with millions of people out there. I hope so. Anything else you want to say? Just be kind to critters. There's a whole lot of things out there that we don't necessarily understand. We take a lot of things for granted. I think we take a lot of information that comes our way for granted. We don't really know what the impact is of that information coming to us, but do yourself a favor and just have some firsthand experience and give things the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the day, you have to assume that you might be wrong at times. I was extremely wrong about what this was. It just opened up my perspective. Keep an open mind. Awesome message. Before I let you go, last one. I know I said that already. Any fights coming up? Anything that fans out there can look forward to? Yeah, for sure. I just had a big fight. Actually, kind of a historic fight in California. It was the first of its kind in California, a dirty boxing event, special MMA rules and everything. Pretty fast-paced, pretty violent. I had a big win as the main event. It opened up a few doors for me. If you guys want to follow along and see where my career is headed next, a lot of opportunities did open up. Hopefully, I'll be fighting again in October and maybe once more before the year's over, trying to stay super active. You can follow me on Instagram and you can see the updates as far as that goes. Awesome. What's the Instagram if you know it? Instagram is K-O-H-L underscore L-A-R-E-N. That's my first and last name with the underscore between. That's awesome. Obviously, you follow Daisy too. Yeah, Daisy the Opossum on Instagram. I call it the Daily Dose of Daisy. As I'm taking care of her, I'm just posting something every day. Just trying to keep people updated on the cool experiences I get to have. That's awesome. Thank you so much, brother. I appreciate you coming in. Thanks, Daisy. She's looking at you.