Cool cat: Billy Idol’s feline lookalike gains popularity on TikTok

A Nova Scotia cat has gained an impressive social media following for his fabulous fur and resemblance to a punk rock icon.

Calzy the cat’s parents, Basmah and Aia Alkhudair, started posting videos of him on TikTok earlier this year.

“We were like, everybody has TikToks of their cats, so why not, you know, post Calzy’s videos,” says Aia. “Just everyday posts, and all of a sudden we decided to post this one of him out on the deck and his hair, his fur, is flying everywhere. It just became a hit.”

That video, posted with Billy Idol’s 1982 single “Hot in the City” playing in the background, has garnered more than 4,000 views on the social media app. And it didn’t take long for people to see Calzy’s resemblance to the British singer.

“I didn’t even know who Billy Idol was, unfortunately, so I had to search him up. I was like, OK I see a little bit of resemblance here, you know, the whole hair and everything,” says Aia. “He does have, like, rock ‘n’ roll style, with the hair. He does have a punk rock look to him, to be honest. So it matched, yeah. I could see why they thought, you know, he resembles him a lot.”

While Calzy’s online followers love his magnificent mane, his owners say they have nothing to do with it.

“Everyone seems to think that we style it ourselves, but we don’t … it just grows out naturally like that,” says Basmah. “So we’re like, OK, we’re gonna keep it that way.”

Calzy now calls Halifax home, but he was originally a rescue from Saudi Arabia.

“We were visiting there at the time and there’s an Instagram page for cats that are being rescued, and we saw a picture of a cat, he looked pretty worn down, he looked really sad and we thought, OK, we should rescue him for sure. And we brought him here in 2019 and he’s been living here and enjoying a happy life,” says Basmah.

You can follow Calzy on TikTok by searching his username, “calzykool.”