major tom to ground control

THE CATS: We’ll start up front with the overwhelming fact that they have eleven (or perhaps twelve or thirteen, please refer to note 1) cats. For a long time, the family had a moderately sensible level of pets (five cats, one dog, and a horse). But when Alex moved to Monaco in 2019, the situation got somewhat out of hand. Alex talked about how they acquired so many on a podcast earlier in the year: “We’ve always had a lot of animals, but it started to get a little excessive. I have four siblings, and my mum is definitely an animal person. When everyone started to go to Uni and I got into F1, bit by bit the house got more and more empty. I think to replace humans, she brought in animals and became a typical cat lady. “We started off with a bunch of cats. We had four to begin with: Armani, Gucci, Lucky and Prada. Then we got another one called Hugo Boss. There was a bit of synergy – you can understand why we chose the names. Then we got two more because the builders that came to our house had cats who had given birth, so we thought why not. They were called Duck and Goose. At that point, that’s seven cats and you can draw the line there. We don’t need more than that. But then, the same builders had another litter, and one of my sisters and my mum wanted one of them. Which I was very against because that’s too many. But then I came back from a race and they had taken four of the litter. I’m a cat person, but I’m not like that. The family has made me look crazy.” Alex Albon on The Fast and the Curious Podcast (episode posted 16 March 2023, 37:10). 

We’ll get into each of the cats individually below, in the assumed order that they joined the family. But first, an aside on nomenclature: As T.S. Eliot and the musical Cats taught us, the naming of cats is a difficult matter. I’ll leave you to study the 1998 recording of the song in your own time, but the main takeaway is that a cat must have three different names. As we’ll see, Alex’s family has clearly taken this advice to heart.

Initially, all of the cats were named after fashion designers, as Alex mentioned above. While some of the cats have retained this as their primary name (e.g., Gucci), most of them have acquired additional names over the years. As followers of the Albon_Pets instagram account will know, they all have assigned emojis, which I believe has led to the newer cats being primarily named after animals. Alex has said that his dad is allergic to cats, which is wild. Unclear if he was talking about his biological father or his stepfather, but I assume he’s talking about his stepfather as he lives with his mother and is therefore relevant. If he was, that’s truly insane to think about. There aren’t enough antihistamines in the world. 

Looky (Cavalli, Lucky, Lulu) - 👸🏼 Born 4 January, Looky sadly passed away 24 April 2025

Looky was Alex’s mum’s favourite cat and was a literal princess.

Frooky (Prada, Princess Pea) - 🐰 (emoji shared with Bitbit and Lilly) Born 18 January (year uncertain) Frooky doesn’t appear in the stories as much as the other cats, so I assume she’s a bit shy. But apparently she loves to sing! 🎤

Gucci (Gucster) - 🐯 Born 12 December 2011, sibling to Moomoo

Moomoo (Armani) - 🦁 Born 12 December 2011, sibling to Gucci Moomoo and Gucci are almost identical, but Gucci has more white on his chin. Moomoo is the cat who congratulated George on his win (as seen above, please refer to Note 1) and is also one of two cats that George was able to name in the Twitch Quartet Quiz. He was also featured in the recent Albon Pets Singapore Merch promo. (Note 1: the emoji used for George in the above photo is not consistent with other George emoji usage. He is usually a brown bear, and Luca is the koala. Do better, Moomoo.)

Horsey (Stan, Hugo Boss) - 🐴 Born 11 May 2017

Horsey is the best one. Sorry to the other cats, but it’s true. He’s definitely Alex’s favourite cat, and he’s the one Alex kisses on his little head. Alex usually calls him Stan.

We're getting some more photos of Horsey and Alex now because Horsey is so important.

In the Twitch Quartert Quiz already discussed, Horsey was the other cat that George could name, and he listed him twice (by the names Horse and Stan). Horsey is absolutely the head of the household and is obsessed with Nandos. He also loves ham and hates Nutella pancakes (Zoe's favourite).

Duckie (Yves)- 🦆 Born 21 May 2021, sibling to Goosie Goosie (Ralph Lauren) - 🐥 Born 21 May 2021, sibling to Duckie Duckie and Goose seem to like climbing/sleeping on Alex, which is so valid of them. 

I'll be honest here and admit that I can't tell them apart and I'm not going to try.

Sasha (Sushi) - 🦋 Born 3 July 2019, joined the family in April 2022 She looks a lot like Horsey, but has longer fur. She isn’t often seen in group photos with the other cats, so I assume she’s a bit shy like Frooky. I'm not sure where she came from, as they seem to normally get kittens and not older cats, but she's very cute.

The Safari Kittens Siblings, all born 19 May 2022

The Safari Kittens have the same mum as Duck and Goose, and I can't tell them apart so I'm just going to list their names and emojis.

Blue Bear (Bottega) - 🐻‍❄️ (emoji stolen from Charles, discussed further below)  Gigi (Giraffe, Venta) - 🦒 Hippo (Hip Hip, Dior) - 🦛 Tiger (Tiggy, Tiktok, Chanel) - 🐆 They're super cute and also seem to love hanging out with Alex whenever he's home.

THE DOG:

Otter (Otto/Otti) - 🦦 Born 1 December 2022, came home in February 2023

As a running theme, he also seems to be obsessed with Alex, which again, is so relatable. At first it made Horsey super jealous, but don't worry Horsey, you're still Alex's best boy.

THE HORSES:

Tinky (Tinkerbell) - 🦄 Born 26 July 2000

Tinky is Bitbit’s pony and they were born on the same day and are the same age. Tinky is retired now.

Snow White - 🐟 Born 2009 Snow White came to join the zoo & keep Tinky company in May 2023 after the horse that Tinky shared a field with (Toby, not owed by the Albon family) died. Snow White also a retired pony.

PHEOBE AND QUEENIE - AN INVESTIGATION: Eagle-eyed followers of Albon_Pets might have spotted that in the captions of posts, two cats are often included in parentheses at the end, Phoebe 🐈‍⬛ & Queenie 🐈. 

If you’re like me, the first time you saw this you may have worried that the Albons actually had fourteen cats, a number that is truly unthinkable. However, as we never see Pheobe or Queenie on the grid or in their stories, their identity was unclear. After a thorough investigation of the available evidence, I can now reveal the truth.

Phoebe is an outside cat who lives with Tinky. While we have no official confirmation regarding Queenie’s identity, we can safely assume that she is another outside cat who the family presumably feeds and keeps an eye on. ETA 14/09/2023 - everyone rejoice, I found a photo of Queenie! Very fitting name, i would die for her, etc

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Alex’s family all also have emojis, as do the ‘cousins’ of the family and some of Alex’s teammates: His mum - 👵🏼 His dad - 👴🏼 Alex - 🐼 Zoe - 🐧 Alicia - 🐠 Chloe (Bitbit) - 🐰 (emoji shared with Frooky and Lily) Luca - 🐨 Lily - 🐰 (emoji shared with Frooky and Bitbit)

Cousin George - 🐻 Cousin Nick Cassidy (Formula E driver) - 🐘 Cousin Charles - 🐻‍❄️ (even though the emoji was rudely stolen by Bear, we have confirmation Charles hasn't lost his cousin status) Yuki has had different emojis, the seal 🦭 and the butterfly 🦋 (the butterfly is now used by Sasha) Nicky was given the dolphin emoji - 🐬 Logan naturally has the eagle emoji - 🦅 Williams Racing is the dino emoji - 🦕 (i guess corporations are people?) Cousin Zhou (cat dads unite) - 🐱 Lando - 🐶 (crucially not given cousin status, however) Carlos - 🦌 In the captions of birthday posts, other emojis have been used for people who I assume are the partners of Alex's siblings. I don't know anything about them, and I won't be finding out, but I'm going to list them here to clarify that these are (presumably) people and not pets: Lorenzo - 🦥 Max - 🦘 Harrison - 🦓 Ella - 🐞

There are also some pets who have sadly gone over the rainbow bridge, including dogs Tino (aka Valentino/Dean), Rossi and Miguel (aka Michael) and a cat called Chicken (sibling to Duckie and Goosie). These pets are beyond the scope of this primer. 

THE CONCLUSION: As I can’t imagine this being actually useful to anyone, I hope you found this enjoyable and interesting. The Albon_Pets lore is bottomless, and I’ve gone as deep as I dare go. There’s definitely more information I could have included, but like. I got tired. That said, if you know how old Frooky and Looky are, I’d love to know so I can update the cat bios. 

ETA 6/4/2024 - NOTE 1: the number of albon cats is frequently reported (by alex) as thirteen (causing the author of this primer to lose her mind), and finally after much agony, the Instagram account provided clarity: