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Karl Lagerfeld's cat and 11-year-old godson 'set to inherit' designer's $150 million fortune

What will become of Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved cat Choupette? [Photo: Instagram/@choupettesdiary/Getty]
What will become of Karl Lagerfeld’s beloved cat Choupette? [Photo: Instagram/@choupettesdiary/Getty]

Following news of Karl Lagerfeld’s tragic passing yesterday, people are wondering what will happen to his beloved feline companion: Choupette.

The white fluffy Burmese cat has enjoyed a life most humans could only dream of since Chanel’s creative director became her owner.

Not only has the pampered puss been showered with presents (catnip and caviar anyone?), she’s travelled the world with the fashion figurehead, in the best seat bien sur.

With her own social media channels and appearances in high-end mags such as Vogue, she’s already the most famous cat on the planet – and could soon become the richest.

Last year the designer told an interviewer that “among others” he would be leaving his estimated $150 million fortune to Choupette.

And people are speculating that the “others” Lagerfeld had in mind could include his godson and ‘muse’, Hudson Kroenig.

According to Vanity Fair, Hudson has worked with Lagerfeld from the age of two, with the young model making headlines back in 2011 when he made his debut on the catwalk in Paris, wearing Chanel.

Aside from potentially becoming joint-heir to his fortune, here are six other bonkers things you didn’t know about the sassy Siamese Choupette.

She wasn’t always Lagerfeld’s cat

Choupette originally belonged to French model Baptiste Giabiconi, but when he left Choupette in the care of Lagerfeld for two weeks, the pair formed an unbreakable bond.

“When he came back I thought, ‘I’m sorry Choupette is mine,'” Lagerfeld said in an interview with CNBC of his new feline friend.

She’s Insta-famous

Remember those Instagram accounts dedicated to an A-lister’s bodypart? Well Choupette’s rise to Insta-fame originally began like that when an account calling itself @ChoupettesDiary appeared in 2012 and quickly clocked up thousands of followers.

But, the account was later revealed by Fashionista not to be the work of Karl, but an American social media director.

Though the parody accounts didn’t necessarily have Lagerfeld’s blessing, they were seemingly allowed to continue and now a whopping 181K followers are kept abreast of Choupette’s comings and goings.

She has her own staff

Princess Choupette is treated like a royal with her own body guard and “personal maids”, Françoise and Marjorie, who tend to her every need.

“She has several maids. She’s never alone when I’m not there. Oh, no, no . . . Even if she sleeps, she doesn’t want to be alone. She’s like a chic lady, like a kept woman with her personal maid,” Lagerfeld told CNBC.

Aside from helping out with her weekly manicures, another of Choupette’s maids’ tasks is to document her every lick and scratch.

“When I am not there, the maids take down, in little books, everything she did, from what she ate, to how she behaved, if she was tired, and if she wasn’t sleeping. In the nine months, we have almost 600 pages,” Lagerfeld told the Daily Beast.

She’s pretty well off

Karl proudly told The Cut that Choupette was the “most famous” and “richest” cat in the world after making $3 million in one year for just two jobs — one for a German car company and the other for a Japanese cosmetics brand.

While we’ve seen the precious puss gracing the pages of Brazilian Vogue and i-D, we won’t likely see her promoting pet food any time soon. “I don’t allow her to do foodstuffs and things like this,” Karl once quipped. “She’s too sophisticated for that.”

And the expectation is that Choupette will go on living the lifestyle she has become accustomed to, despite the death of her owner.

“Choupette is a rich girl,” Lagefeld once told French television, hinting that had written his feline companion into his will.

She eats at the dinner table

No bowls of Felix for this feline, nope instead of eating on the floor, Choupette was invited to join her owner at the table. “She has lunch and dinner with me on the table, with her own food,” the designer once said according to WWD. “She doesn’t touch my food.”

What’s more the pampered puss eats like a queen. Her book Choupette: The Private Life of a High-Flying Fashion Cat, (of course she has a book!) reveals recipes of her favourite meals including one particularly lavish blend of king crab, smoked salmon and caviar. It’s a cat’s life!

She’s already missing her owner

Choupette’s Diary told the Cut in a statement: “Choupette is coping with the loss the best she knows how. But, at such a young age (and being a cat) that is challenging. Karl Lagerfeld is and will always be her ‘Daddy’. She is choosing to put her best paw forward and hopes that her loyal fans and followers will continue with their outpouring of love to help ease the pain.”

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Read more from Yahoo Style UK:

Karl Lagerfeld: The fashion icon’s career in pictures

Karl Lagerfeld dead at 85 – celebrities pay tribute to Chanel’s legendary designer

21 of Karl Lagerfeld’s most memorable (and controversial) quotes: ‘Sweatpants are a sign of defeat’