Now THIS is cray!! An italian cat who goes by the name of Tomasso, has become the world’s richest kitty after his owner left him $8.5 million in her will. More details after the jump!!
Tommaso the black cat, who once scoured the streets of Rome for food, can now afford a gilded litter box with the inheritance.
In a handwritten will penned shortly before her death last month, Maria Assunta, 94, ordered that the money from her real estate empire should keep the green-eyed feline she rescued in the lap of luxury.
Animals are prohibited from direct inheritance under Italian law, so Assunta tasked her lawyers with finding “the animal welfare body or association to which to leave the inheritance and the task of looking after the cat Tommaso,†according to The Guardian newspaper.
They searched far and wide for the right organization, but none could guarantee Tommaso the princely life envisioned for him by Assunta.
So she willed her beloved feline — and the riches — to a fellow cat-lover she met in a park weeks before she died.
“Sometimes I’d go to her house so my cat could play with Tommaso,” the woman, identified only as Stefania, told The Guardian.
Stefania, a nurse, also cared for Assunta until the end.
“I had no idea the signora had such wealth,†Stefania said.
She and Tommaso are now living in an “undisclosed location†outside Rome, The Guardian reported.
Tommaso is not the first lucky pet to receive a massive payday.
“Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley famously left $12 million in 2007 for the care of her tiny dog, Trouble.
The hotel heiress’s will was later challenged and recast.
