Silence for the queen of haute cat-ture: Choupette is on set.
The blue-cream Birman is not only one of the late Karl Lagerfeld’s official heirs — he called her “the center of the world” — but she has also become a powerful celebrity in her own right since the fashion legend’s 2019 death.
She’s working as an in-demand pet influencer, endorsing campaigns to her more than 275,000 Instagram followers for everyone from upscale watch brand Hublot to skincare and makeup line Shu Uemura.
Choupette’s luxe life is catnip to the luxe world right now — and she has an appropriate level of influencer cat-itude.
“I wouldn’t say she’s grumpy, but she’s demanding,” her Paris-based agent, Lucas Berullier, told The Post. “You never understand fully what she thinks.”
Plus, she and Lagerfeld shared more than a coiffed white hairstyle.
“He said she was like him — she likes to be alone,” Berullier added.
But Choupette isn’t alone in her stardom — she’s among a flurry of furry A-list animals whose careers Clooney, Cruise and Streep would envy.
Berullier has around 5,000 animals on his books, but one of his team members works full-time solely on Choupette, fielding hundreds of requests each week; approved gigs have included German automaker Opel and French former GUESS model Laetitia Casta.
So how meow-ch of a kitty can a kitty get?
Berullier said he’s legally prevented from dishing on Choupette’s bottom line, but the global pet influencer market was valued at a whopping $1.42 billion last year. And the surprising power of pet influencers far outweighs any human – engagement for Fido and Fluffy can reach 7.2%, versus just 2.6% average for human creators.
“They earn a lot of money. We’ve had clients get paid $40,000 for one post,” Loni Edwards Lunau, the NYC-based founder of management company The Dog Agency, told The Post; her late Frenchie, Chloe, was an early pet influencer, working with Martha Stewart and more.
Diva behavior and body doubles
Choupette is unusual, said Lunau, in winning over the pup-arazzi.
“It’s much easier to get more work, and higher-paying work, for the dogs — they’re man’s best friend, so that’s who marketers tend to turn to.”
Not that Choupette is hurting for fame, much less invites — she even scored one, which was declined, to the 2023 Met Gala.
Choupette’s team is evasive about her age – she’s a lady, after all — but she was rumored to have turned 14 in August.
And she has a suitable teenage attitude at photoshoots.
On set, she could out-diva Mariah Carey: Choupette requires that there be absolutely no noise and has a coach who acts as a liaison between her and the photographer, ensuring that the best snaps are captured immediately before she’s, well, whiskered away.
“The first few minutes are crucial, because you don’t ask Choupette to pose twice,” Berullier told The Post. If that doesn’t happen, it’s no cat-astrophe. She has several body doubles ready to stand in for her.
“On the latest shoot, we had four much younger and more playful, and now we do a bit of AI” to add her face, Berullier added.
Call it Puss in Secondhand Boots.
Lunau has even wrangled a worldwide squad of hedgehogs for appearances on red carpet premieres for “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies and even flew a live pig into Manhattan for another.
“We had to get special permission, as there are rules about what animals can be in different places,” she said, “We got a special actor exemption.”
‘Goldendoodles need their blowouts’
Thankfully, four-legged celebs don’t have formidable things like “no nudity” clauses, as when an underwear brand unleashed a request to find influencers and their owners to both appear together in a campaign — wearing the same tighty whities.
“No one wanted to do it, though,” Lunau said.
She has around 200 or so animals exclusively on her books, including Tika (@tikatheiggy), plus Harlow and Sage (@harlowandsage), all with over 100,000 Instagram followers, and has brokered deals for that roster with brands like Swiffer, Dyson and Subaru. Tika even scored her own capsule line at Zara.
Lunau keeps a handful of celebrity groomers on her books, too.
“They’re glam squads for pets,” she said. “Goldendoodles need their blowouts.”
Mark Wardle’s the animal wrangler at UK-based Urban Paws, which works with Peggy the Hairless Pug (@peggythehairlesspug), among others. Choupette’s divadom isn’t typical, per Wardle, who warns that the biggest issue is usually the humans around them.
One feline was asked to be a spokespet for a pet food company, but its owner responded that they’d be happy to take part on one condition: the product would need reformulating to better reflect their diet of organic fruit and vegetables.
“They forget it’s a cat and not a person,” Wardle told The Post.
Not everyone wants to work with an agent like that, though, as they’ll usually take a 20% cut of any pet’s pay packet.
Lindsay van Bramer adopted the three-legged rescue Frenchie Beth (@pardonthyfrench) nine years ago – think of the poor pooch as a diamond in the ruff.
Van Bramer saw the potential, though, and helped Beth fetch more than $200,000 for a year-long contract; one-off posts can hit $25,000 each. She’s worked with everyone from Walmart and Netflix to Disney, as well as launched a full merchandise line before Beth died last March. (Billie, another rescue, has taken over the account.)
Van Bramer is a Kris Jenner-type momager.
“I’ve made more money doing it on my own. With an agency, they have rosters of dogs, so if the client doesn’t want one Frenchie, they’re not fighting for yours — they go to the next one.”
She turns down the canine equivalent of tummy-slimming tea regularly – think multivitamins that claim to prolong a dog’s life – but she recently landed an Astroglide lube partnership.
“Tell me you haven’t had sex and looked over to see your dog was staring at you?” she recalled pitching them. “And you want to know something that slides harder than a dog on hardwood floors?”
The campaign’s not yet live, but Billie’s been booked again.
Belles of the ball
Sam Carell is equally picky about the gigs she self-books for her pair of dogs, Tinkerbelle (@tinkerbellethedog), who’s been working for almost 12 years, and her young sidekick, Belle.
“We just did a huge deal with Kate Spade, and when Tweezerman launched a pet line, they brought in Tinkerbelle and Belle,” she says. Carell is adamant she won’t partner with a particular, unnamed company that keeps reaching out for the duo’s endorsement — for an electric-shock behavioral collar.
“They come back to me with even more money every time, and I would never do that,” she asserted. “It’s torture.”
Her duo also books acting gigs, including appearing on “Saturday Night Live.”
“When they’re not acting, they’re going to the beach — so I’m working on a beach partnership,” she said. “I know there are a lot of animals out there, but I don’t feel competitive.”
Still, no one can match Choupette’s latest on-screen appearance.
When the “Smurfs” film launched in France, with Rihanna on its soundtrack, the voiceovers were, of course, dubbed. Human celebrities handled Smurfette and company, but it was down to Choupette to find the exact right “meow” for the villainous cat, Azrael.
Among pet influencers, she’s the ultimate purr-fessional.
“It was the smallest role, and it only took two hours in a studio to record,” a proud Berullier said.
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