Ricky Gervais marks 17th birthday of his beloved late cat Ollie

9 July 2020, 12:34 | Updated: 9 July 2020, 12:45

The Office and After Life creator took to social media to celebrate what would have been the 17th birthday of the Siamese cat, who passed away earlier this year.

Ricky Gervais has celebrated what would have been his cat Ollie's 17th birthday.

The Office creator, who sadly lost his beloved Siamese cat earlier this year, took to social media to mark the day by sharing an image of himself with his furry friend.

He captioned it: "Happy Birthday to my little Ollie who would have been 17 today".

View this post on Instagram

Happy Birthday to my little Ollie who would have been 17 today 💔

A post shared by Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) on Jul 9, 2020 at 1:00am PDT

The comedian, writer, director and actor announced the sad passing of his feline friend back in March, writing: "Just had to say goodbye to the sweetest little soul I've ever known. RIP Ollie

"July 9th 2003 - March 10 2020".

Gervais was inundated by support from fans and animal lovers, after which he wrote: "A heartfelt thank you for all your lovely tributes to @myleftfang. I can't quite bring myself to respond at the moment, but your kindness is very much appreciated."

Meanwhile, Gervais has recently celebrated his After Life series becoming the most watched UK comedy in the world.

Addressing his fans, he wrote: "I have no Emmy campaign for #AfterLife. No press ads, no billboards, nothing. I didn't have any of those things for the launch either, but fans of the show came through for me as usual and made it the most watched British comedy in the world. And that's better than any award."

Speaking to Radio X's Danny Wallace about the impact the show has had, Gervais revealed that he received over 300 letters in the first week of the first season being aired, and he still gets people coming up to him and opening up about their grief now.

"Genuinely. I’ve never had a reaction like it," he mused. "And I don’t just mean the size of the reaction, as that could be a reflection of the fact Netflix has £170 million subscribers worldwide, which is mind-blowing really when you think about It [...] but it was the emotional response.

"My agent on the first week got 300 letters. Now that is really rare, where people are bothering to write letters, and they were telling their own story, so it wasn’t a tweet, it wasn’t a thumbs up."

Watch our interview with here:

Ricky Gervais talks the impact of After Life

He added: "People come up to me on the street. Usually it’s, ‘I loved the show,’ or ‘Give it to them at the Golden Globes’ and now they come up and approach me and say, ‘I lost my brother three weeks before I watched it and you think, ‘Oh my god. Everyone’s grieving.

"Everyone in the world is grieving about something all the time and the older you get the more you’ve got to grieve about... And I really didn’t think of it as a document about grief.”

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