Konspiracy Theory: Where Is Kourtney's Cat, Charli Kardashian? 

Kourtney Kardashian’s Bengal cat, Charli, hasn’t appeared in her Instagram feed in 56 weeks and I’m starting to get worried. Not that there’s anything wrong with a celebrity cat keeping a low profile, it’s just that this particular family has a dubious track record as pet owners, so something must be afoot for Charli to enjoy almost a year of privacy.

Let’s take a look at the facts:

Charli made her Instagram debut Christmas 2013. Given the date of her arrival, it’s safe to assume she was a gift. At the time, Kourt and Scott had two kids and the cat was a cute addition to their young, growing fam. To get yourself in that late-2013 frame of mind, this is what Nori West looked like:

Along with being smart and good with kids, Bengals are also known for their leopard-y appearance. At the time, Kourtney was having a very big leopard print moment in her grams, so the cat was very on-brand for her that season. We were seeing leopard furniture:

Leopard workout leggings:

Plus leopard Kardashian Kollection AND Kardashian Kids gear:

But then, after exactly six months of pet content, Charli quietly receded from the spotlight. She was last grammed 56 weeks ago (June of 2014), comfortably napping:

Timing-wise, that final gram came shortly after Kim and Kanye’s high-profile wedding at Versailles, and right around the time that Kourtney would’ve found out that she was pregnant with her third baby.

So the question becomes: What happened?

The Kardashians have a tradition of introducing pets that probably live in their houses and lead fine lives, but never really seem to stick around in a narrative sense. Dogs Dolce and Gabbana were both featured in the background of early episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and then relocated to Bruce’s Malibu home in later seasons. In one 2007 KUWTK episode, Kris low-key buys a Maltese puppy for Kendall and Kylie and then hides it in a bedroom for a week so Bruce wouldn’t get mad about having yet another dog in the house.

And Khloe had that Boxer puppy for half a second in 2013, remember? And Bruce was pissed that she wasn’t training him very well/at all, but she was too bogged down with Lamar grief to set firm boundaries about the couch?

This is a family of seasoned-albeit-flaky pet-havers. When Kanye West very publicly surprised Kim with a kitten named Mercy in 2012, Kim had the good sense to admit she didn’t have time to take care of it and gave the cat to her assistant. Mercy died shortly thereafter, but not for lack of caretakers. The most recent Kardashian pets, Norman and Bambi, belong to Kylie and have a thriving Instagram presence.

Point being: these people aren’t monsters. If Kourt herself was no longer into the cat, there’s precedent within the family of giving it to a trusted friend or just leaving it at a parent’s house. Bare minimum, she can afford to pay someone else to remember to clean the litter box.

So where the fuck is Charli?

The way I see it, we’re dealing with a few possible realities:

1. Having three young children and a babyhusband* in the house is incredibly stressful! Once baby Reign came into the picture, Kourt was like, “Someone please take this goddamn cat off my plate,” and now the cat lives as a civilian somewhere.
2. Having three young children and a babyhusband in the house is incredibly stressful! The cat is still around, but they forget it’s alive until they want to spend a week in the Hamptons and an assistant is like, “And the cat? Should we throw some fresh food in the bowl every few days?”
3. Having three young children and a babyhusband in the house is incredibly stressful! That cat is dead as hell!

If we’re going with the, “Alive but no longer a Kardashian,” theory, then some patriot is somewhere living the dream with an extremely Instagrammable cat who probably came with a lot of accessories and was up-to-date on all her shots.

If we’re going with, “Alive but definitely forgotten,” then Charli Kardashian spends a lot of time doing exactly what she was doing before: indifferently languishing in a luxurious suburban home, as is her wont.

But if we’re going with, “Dead as hell!” we’re probably right.

*Scott Disick is neither a baby or Kourtney’s husband, but he is 100% her babyhusband.

Christine Friar writes/lives in New York. She has a Twitter.

Illustration by Bobby Finger, source images from Interstellar/Paramount, Instagram, Getty