[citation needed] Rendall and Bourke,[b] along with their friends Jennifer Mary Taylor and Unity Jones, cared for the lion where they lived in London until he was a year old.

Rendall and Bourke obtained permission from a local minister to exercise Christian at the Moravian church graveyard just off the King's Road and Milman's Street, SW10; and the men also took the lion on day trips to the seaside.

[citation needed] Christian's growing size and the increasing cost of his care led Rendall and Bourke to understand they could not keep him in London.

Adamson, a British conservationist and advocate for lions in Kenya, who together with his wife Joy raised and released Elsa the lioness, agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at their compound in the Kora National Reserve.

Once they were confident Christian had managed to become successfully integrated into the new pride George Adamson had established, Ace and John eventually returned to England.

[10] In September 2008, Sony Pictures announced that it was interested in obtaining the rights to the story of Christian's life for the purpose of making a feature film.

[11] Following the spread of Christian’s story on YouTube Rendall and Bourke revised and republished their book in 2009 in which they also added their account of their return-visits to Kenya in 1971 and 1972.

In addition, the two original documentaries were combined into a single DVD entitled Christian - the Lion at World End which was released by the Born Free Foundation.

Christian, the Hugging Lion was written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and illustrated by Amy June Bates.

The official portrait of Christian the Lion, Uhuru, was drawn by hyperreal artist Emma Towers-Evans in 2021 in support of conservation charities.