Because a company explicitly telling you that a character that is obviously drawn to look like a cat and is named Kitty isn't a cat is forking weird. More to the point, it's not just that they're saying she isn't a cat. It's that they're insisting on claiming she's a little British girl.
It would be like if Warner Bros. suddenly came out and was like "Bugs Bunny isn't actually a rabbit. He's a middle aged teamster from Brooklyn who is divorced and has two kids he sees every other weekend."