CRAIG BROWN: Is this the most annoying cat in the world?

CRAIG BROWN: Is this the most annoying cat in the world? Karl Lagerfeld’s preposterously pampered puss appears in Vogue

One of the purposes of our frenetic celebrity culture is to provide us with hundreds of people to look down on.

For every celebrity worth admiring, there are two or three whose purpose is only to be irritating.

Riding high in my personal charts this week are the unavoidable Sarah, Duchess of York, the grim, finger-pointing Alan Sugar (‘Thank you for the opportunity, Lord Sugar’), the mediocre and absurdly overpraised Ken Bruce, and the grinning, gurning Gregg Wallace (particularly his first name — three ‘g’s in the space of five letters is at least one too many).

Up to now, celebrity animals have never featured high on my list of irritants. Of course, there aren’t very many of them, though I very much approved of the plucky Fenton, the labrador who went viral after chasing a herd of deer in Richmond Park. 

And, going back a few years, the modest and unstarry Dolly, the first cloned sheep, who followed our new Queen’s maxim: ‘Just get on with it.’

Cat that got the cream: Fashion designer Karl Lagerfield’s cat Choupette was left £1.3m

But recently the late Karl Lagerfeld’s cat Choupette has, I fear, been getting too big for her boots. Choupette, you may remember, was left £1.3 million by the frosty fashion designer when he died four years ago. 

When the news of her inheritance first appeared, I bore no grudge against Choupette. If she gave her offbeat master a little happiness, then why shouldn’t she enjoy a little pampering in her twilight years? But since then, like so many human celebrities, Choupette seems to have confused good luck with talent.

Whenever her picture appears, her face radiates smugness. She has clearly convinced herself that she is not only more beautiful, more gifted and more virtuous than any other cat in the world, but also more deserving.

It is easy to see why she has fallen into this particular trap. In the years since her master died, the fashion world has proved only too eager to flatter her and kowtow to her every catty need.

Last week, she appeared in the cover story for Vogue, being cradled by Naomi Campbell. She has previously been photographed with Linda Evangelista and Gisele Bundchen. ‘We get contacted almost every day for a shoot, a brand, an interview,’ boasts her Paris agent, Lucas Berullier.

Choupette has received an invitation to this year’s Met Gala in New York. No doubt she will appear on the red carpet, hands on hips, posing in next to nothing. Then she will be spotted in a pair of dark glasses sitting haughtily next to Anna Wintour at a fashion show. And the next day she will be snapped emerging from a trendy New York restaurant on the arm of Harry Styles.

According to Berullier, she is now ‘the world’s most famous and most photographed cat’, having been snapped over 200,000 times. She has 140,000 followers on Instagram. Like most agents, Berullier spends his time bigging up his client. Rather than just say ‘she’s a cat that got lucky’, he insists on talking about Choupette as though she were as brainy as Simone de Beauvoir, as beautiful as Brigitte Bardot and as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa.

‘She’s very sophisticated, very hard to read,’ Berullier told a reporter from The Times recently. ‘There is a big independency in her that shows strength. She knows how to show a bit of a sweet spot and is not arrogant.’

‘Does Choupette only watch films with subtitles? Does she switch over when Gogglebox comes on?’ 

What on earth does he mean by this? How can you tell if a cat is sophisticated? Does Choupette only watch films with subtitles? Does she switch over when Gogglebox comes on? Was she a little bit disappointed by the latest Sally Rooney? Given the choice, would she prefer to tuck into Oeufs Cocotte rather than Dead Mouse?

Last year, Choupette enjoyed celebrating her tenth birthday at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, surrounded by designer presents from creepy hangers-on.

But what will happen when she loses her looks and the money runs out? Her designer friends will move on to a brand new cat, more famous and more fashionable.

In fact, her status may already be in jeopardy. When she arrives at the Coronation next month, will she find herself seated in the 19th row, behind a pillar, only a few feet in front of Prince Harry?

Source: Read Full Article