🕯️ LEGENDS GARDEN
🎭 Venus
Domestic cat (tortoiseshell shorthair) · North Carolina, USA
Lives in Legends Garden
Venus was a tortoiseshell taken in as a stray in North Carolina in September 2009, born with a face split exactly down the middle: black on one side, orange tabby on the other, with one green eye and one blue. A photo posted to Reddit in August 2012 made her a global story within days, and she went on to the Today Show, Fox & Friends and a following of millions. She died on 16 August 2026 at the age of 17 from advanced kidney disease, nine days after Roo, her housemate of twelve years.
What they do
Turns her head slowly from full profile to straight-on, so the black half and the ginger half swap sides and then meet the viewer face-first, both mismatched eyes wide open..
Sweet and quiet, and completely unaware that she stopped traffic every time she looked up.
Lore
- ★A Reddit post in August 2012 made her famous within days; by September 2012 her videos had passed a million YouTube views.
- ★Vets never fully agreed on the cause. 'Chimera' is the popular label, but unusual mosaicism or piebald gene expression is the more likely explanation.
- ★Her accounts carried the tagline '0% photoshopped, 100% born this way!'
- ★She appeared on the Today Show in August 2012 and Fox & Friends in July 2014.
Helping the real one
No verified way to support this animal exists.
We will not invent one.
No donation route. Her family's Instagram account is still up as a memorial, but it is not a fundraiser and no charity appeal in her name could be verified.
Where this comes from
- Wikipedia Venus (cat) ↗
- iHeartCats Famous cats Venus and Roo die just 9 days apart after 12 years together ↗
Every link here was checked twice before it was published. If one is dead or wrong, tell us.