Yes, you read that headline right. Hello Kitty is not – we repeat, NOT – a cat. After 40 years of collecting the cash of cat lovers worldwide, Sanrio has revealed the secret of its star character, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The startling truth was uncovered by anthropologist/Hello Kitty scholar Christine R. Yano, who has studied the phenomenon surrounding the minimalist meower for years. Yano was, of course, the ideal person to help curate Los Angeles’s upcoming Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum.

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After Yano waded through all the Hello Kitty toasters, coin purses and haute couture to pick out the purrfect exhibit pieces, she sent her notes to Sanrio for approval. The company was pleased with the Hello Kitty connoisseur’s work, except for one earth-shattering detail.

“I was corrected – very firmly,” Yano said. “That’s one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”

The mind-boggling information bombs don’t stop there. Yano’s deep dig revealed other little-known facts about this famous “feline.” Hello Kitty was created with a life story. Her full name is Kitty White and she is a Scorpio who adores apple pie. But wait, there’s more.

“She has a twin sister,” Yano shared. “She’s a perpetual third-grader. She lives outside of London. I could go on. A lot of people don’t know the story and a lot don’t care. But it’s interesting because Hello Kitty emerged in the 1970s, when the Japanese and Japanese women were into Britain.”

While Yano seems tickled by this Hello Kitty surprise, the world is reacting in shock. We’ve been duped by a strange, dead-eyed child, who has been a “kitty” only by name for four decades. What’s next? Is Mickey Mouse a big-eared boy with a shirt aversion? Is Bugs Bunny just a retired comedian on a strict vegetarian diet? One thing is certain, cartoon characters can no longer be trusted – no matter how many lunch boxes they’ve graced.

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