Celebrating the Real WerePup of Beverley Hills

I thought hell would freeze over before I got Rob to watch an entire episode of The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills, but thanks to a potent combination of terrible hangovers and a classic 2013 episode where Joyce accuses ‘English witch’ Carlton of putting a hex on her husband, I have managed it.

It happened on a Sunday. Neither of us were feeling too clever, and I decamped to the sofa to watch as much crap TV as I could fit in my eyes before he woke up.

Real Housewives of Beverley Hills' Kim Richards (right) is introduced to a fan's WerePup

It was here that I learnt that Kim Richards is more than just Paris Hilton’s aunt, she used to be an actress, and even played someone who got gunned down by a gang in John Carpenter’s massively underrated 1976 movie Assault on Precinct 13.

She’s enough of a star to be asked to go to a fan convention, which is where the cameras followed her - and captured the awkward moment she came face to face with a ‘WEREPUP’, which is a lifelike doll of a baby werwolf, complete with snout, fangs and fur.

Now, for those of you who know me in real life, you’ll know I am absolutely 100 per cent anti dolls. I think anything in human form has the potential to be possessed by a demonic entity, and I’m pretty sure I had such a doll when I was younger.

My doll scary league goes roughly like this:

1. Any doll that has been burnt but is still intact (it will want revenge/didn’t fully burn as the demon in it repelled the flames)

2. Reborn dolls - including ones that look like orangutangs and chimps

3. Porcelain dolls - especially if dressed in Victorian clothes

4. Cloth dolls made from sacking

5. Any of the haunted dolls currently listed on eBay

(Note: As I’m incredibly vain and a hypocrite, overall I’m alright with Chucky and Bratz dolls as I look like them.)

I can't imagine anyone fantasising about giving birth to something so grotesque TBH

So what is a WEREPUP? It is basically a Reborn doll designed to look like a baby werewolf - and they are creepy AF.

Apologies if you have one and you regard it as being your child, I often think human babies are ugly too if that makes you feel better.

People have THESE IN THEIR HOMES AND NOT IN A LOCKED METAL BOX

WerePups are also incredibly expensive, with some dolls going for $300.

At the moment, due to a THREE YEAR waiting list, their creator Asia Eriksen is selling a DIY kit for $140 so you can speed things up a bit and ask a ‘Reborn artist’ to bring your rubbery body parts to life.

Sections of DIY 'WerePup', 'Robbie'

I understand that some people buy a Reborn doll as they miss their children now they’re grown up, or they’re struggling with a deeper issue, but I also know from years of reading magazines like Chat and Take A Break (plus Love It, and That’s Life!.. my living room is like a doctor’s surgery), that it’s quite common for people to have ten or more of these unnerving creations.

It turns out the same is true for the WEREPUPS.

Last year, This Morning featured a woman called Yvette Solomon - funnily enough, the same woman who was on RHOBH - who had a whole army of the little beasts.

Beaming in live and direct from the States (obviously), she showed off her ‘pack’ of kids.

I have two cats (and desperately want to get a third but it’s a contentious issue with the boyf), I understand that sometimes one isn’t enough, but NINE WerePups?

Speaking live from California, she told Holly Willoughby: “The first time I saw one I did a quadruple take as I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. Then I realised… and I fell in love.

“They’re expensive but I eventually got one, and now I have a whole family of them.”

Over the years she has taken her brood of fake children on European cruises, they have a nursery, more than $10k’s worth of clothes and accessories, and some even feature hair plucked from her and her husband’s heads.

The one on the left looks more like a 'WerePensioner'

One - which she says is a “transpecies WerePup that identifies as a WereGorilla” - features teeth from a friend’s dead cat.

During her interview, Yvette explained that she was going through chemo for a very rare form of cancer when she got her first ‘Pup - and during a hospital appointment played a fun trick on a stranger who caught a glimpse of it and commented on how sick her "baby" looked.

She added: “When I went home and told my husband that she said, ‘I’m going to go home and pray for your baby’, he told me that I was going to hell.”

I can’t hate too much on things that give people comfort, and life really is too short to judge others - but please, keep those ugly things the fuck away from me.

However, it seems that for some people, having a pretend werewolf baby isn’t enough - they also want “erotic paranormal fiction that results in a baby”.

As I tried to find out more about WerePups, my hungover state of mind saw me googling something completely different and I ended up finding out about a whole genre of ‘literature’ that the world could probably do without… PARANORMAL ROMANCE.