Actress Linda Blair, best known for her role in The Exorcist, has been cited by Los Angeles County after inspectors found 251 dogs at her unlicensed animal rescue facility in Acton, more than double the site’s permitted limit.
Four county agencies, Regional Planning, Public Works, Public Health, and Animal Care and Control, executed an inspection of the 2.5-acre property run by Blair’s nonprofit, the Linda Blair Worldheart Foundation, after complaints that animals were being kept in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions in unpermitted outbuildings. The property’s animal facility license, capped at 100 dogs, expired in 2023 and was never renewed; county officials said 24 separate inspection attempts over three years had gone unanswered or been refused before this warrant was carried out.
No animals were removed from the property. Inspectors cited code violations related to sanitation and unpermitted structures and ordered veterinary treatment for three dogs found to need it. Blair was cited for operating an unlicensed animal facility and exceeding the permitted number of animals. In a Facebook video addressing the citations, she pointed to broader capacity problems facing rescues and shelters generally, rather than disputing the county’s findings directly.
The case sits at the intersection of two real problems: a nationwide shortage of shelter and rescue capacity that leaves well-intentioned operations stretched thin, and a licensing system meant to catch exactly this kind of overcrowding before it becomes a public health and animal welfare issue. Whether Blair’s rescue crossed that line, or was simply caught in a capacity crisis bigger than any one facility, is likely to be argued out as the county’s compliance process moves forward.
