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John Mayer donates $25,000 to L.A. pet rescue groups after challenging TMZ

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Thanks to celebrity-centric news source TMZ, two L.A.-based pet rescue groups are significantly richer today.

Pop star John Mayer challenged TMZ’s founder, Harvey Levin, to come up with a mug shot from his 2001 arrest for driving with a suspended license. Mayer made a bet with him: Find the mug shot, and Mayer would donate $25,000 to the charity of Levin’s choice. As it happens, Levin is an animal lover and specified pet rescue as his preferred cause.

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In short order, TMZ had posted an appeal to readers, noting that, if the challenge turned out to be a hoax and no mug shot in fact existed, it would say that ‘John Mayer Hates Puppies.’

Turns out Mayer -- as reproach-worthy as some of his other acts (like awful songwriting) might be -- doesn’t hate puppies after all. (Perhaps the rumor that his ex Jennifer Aniston’s beloved corgi mix, Norman, hated him still stings.) TMZ produced the mug shot Thursday, noting that the star’s suspended-license charge was dismissed within a month of the arrest, and urged him to ‘fork over the dough, pal.’

Today, Mayer apparently lived up to his end of the bargain, posting images of two $12,500 checks made out to animal rescue groups Pet Orphans of Southern California and Ace of Hearts to his Twitter account. (The latter group promptly posted a response, ‘THANK YOU JOHN MAYER AND HARVEY LEVIN!,’ on its website.) So, though we’ll never approve of abysmal lyrics like ‘One pair of candy lips and/Your bubblegum tongue,’ we have to give Mayer credit for doing something good -- just this once.

-- Lindsay Barnett

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