Celebrity Cats

Freddie Mercury lived with multiple cats throughout his life and famously dedicated a song to one of them. The story of Delilah, the tortoiseshell who appeared in his final years and inspired a track on Innuendo, the Queen's last studio album with Mercury.

Ernest Hemingway received a polydactyl kitten from a ship captain in 1935. Nearly a century later, the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West houses 60+ descendants, half of them six-toed. The genetics, the cultural history, and what it tells us about cat populations.

Ariana Grande lives with multiple rescue cats alongside her rescue dogs. The pattern of her adoptions, the species and ages, and what her advocacy has changed in the public conversation about cat rescue in the US.