The world has just become an even crueler place, as Bento the Keyboard Cat has died. Bento rose to fame in 2009, when the internet caught wind of a video in which owner Charlie Schmidt’s cat was seen playing the piano/being controlled playing the piano.

Touted as the Keyboard cat, Bento quickly rose to fame and for a while dominated Facebook, YouTube and 9gag. After this his video mostly got shared through forwarded emails shared by large groups of elderly people.

However, the story doesn’t end there. Unbeknownst to us the real keyboard cat had died way before that. Despite gaining popularity in the 2000s, the cat footage was actually recorded in 1984. The cat from the video was not named Bento, but Fatso. Poor Fatso – like so many other artists – never got to taste the fame of his musical prowess.

Similar to how Queen keeps touring without Freddie Mercury, Schmidt decided to simply purchase a new cat, and declare Bento as the new keyboard cat. It led to Schmidt pocketing between $21,100 & $175,800 annually. Although that may have led to Bento leading a very luxurious life, the same can’t be said for Fatso.

Although we do mourn the death of Bento, who was simply a pawn in Schmidt’s diabolical scheme, we would like to take this time to single out Fatso as well. Wherever the two of you are, we hope you can see past the horrible web of lies spun by your master, and find friendship between the both of you.

At this point it’s unclear whether or not Schmidt will get a new cat or not. With the truth being out there, we can only guess what kind of elaborate lies he would have to come up with to make the world fall in love with keyboard cat once again.

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