In news that has sent shockwaves through the cartoon animal community, Hello Kitty parent company Sanrio has just announced that the world-famous cat is, in fact, not a cat. The company’s director of Retail Business Development Jill Cook made the confusing revelation on NBC’s Today morning show, during a segment celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Japanese creation.

After the programme’s cheerful host asked the seemingly obvious question of whether Hello Kitty was a cat or not, Cook immediately shut her down. “So Hello Kitty is not a cat,” the director began. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London.” Cook then went on to describe Miss Kitty’s nuclear family structure of “a mum and a dad and twin sister Mimmy” before revealing that the human child spends her day’s “baking cookies and making friends”.

Images alongside the report showed an aerial view of Miss Kitty’s home, a large pink building in what appears to be an affluent area of London. Cook declined to comment on the specifics of Miss Kitty’s location, presumably due to security concerns. Clues from the segment, however, suggest a leafy borough in south-west London, most probably Merton or Kingston-upon Thames. Coupled with the fact that Miss Kitty fills her time with superfluous leisure activities such as “baking cookies”, it’s safe to presume that the Kitty family enjoy a prosperous, middle-class lifestyle out of reach for the average Londoner.

To many, Hello Kitty’s bourgeois leanings will come as no surprise. She often uses her leisure time to take extravagant trips to far-flung places such as the jungle, and has a number of lucrative marketing partnerships with companies like the Cambridge Satchel Company and Grind Coffee. Cook also notes that Miss Kitty’s family have given their child “her own pet cat Charmy Kitty”, and everyone knows children having their own pets is a middle-class activity. If this wasn’t enough to confirm suspicions, at a Buckingham Palace state banquet with Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, King Charles said the following: “Perhaps you would allow me to note one particular individual who turns 50 this year. Raised in a London suburb with her twin sister, a self-made entrepreneur worth billions of dollars [...] I can only wish a very happy birthday to Hello Kitty.”

Personalised well wishes from the King of England makes perfect sense when you have a privileged upbringing. Miss Kitty would also do well to remember that there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire. But – ultimately – the fact that a self-described “Kitty” is not a cat at all speaks to the systemic, top-down failings from within the Sanrio machine. Going forward, the company’s officials must reveal the species and social leanings of all its animated characters, as an urgent matter of public trust.

For a comprehensive list of London private schools we suspect Miss Kitty to have attended, click here.