Obituary

Lil Bub was a real cat born with a rare bone condition that gave her a permanently goofy, permanently adorable face — drooping jaw, tongue out, tiny paws with extra toes. She appeared online in 2011 and became, alongside Grumpy Cat, one of the two most famous cats of the decade. But Bub was not just famous: she was genuinely good. Her owner used her platform to raise over $700,000 for animal charities, and she was the first cat to have her genome sequenced. She died on December 1, 2019, the same year as Grumpy Cat, closing out the golden age of celebrity cats. The internet grieved, briefly, as one. No cat had ever done more with less.

Portrait: Joyful Noise Recordings · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Born

June 21, 2011

Died

December 1, 2019

Cause of death

Died of being the most loved cat (rest in peace)

Last sighting

A charity event, 2019

Resting place

Section C, Row 9 — beside the famous cats

Category

animal