{"id":326162,"date":"2026-03-07T04:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/326162\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T04:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T04:45:08","slug":"jessie-buckley-insists-she-is-a-lover-of-cats-after-interview-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/326162\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessie Buckley insists she is a “lover of cats” after interview backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscars<\/a> frontrunner Jessie Buckley has insisted that she is definitively pro-cat, after a story about a pet-based ultimatum she once gave her now-husband went viral earlier this week. The Hamnet<\/a> actor and I’d Do Anything finalist<\/a> appeared on US TV last night and set the record straight.<\/p>\n

For those who missed the feline furore, a three-month-old clip from her appearance on the Happy Sad Confused<\/a> podcast resurfaced in recent days, right as the voting period for the 98th Academy Awards came to a close.<\/p>\n

Appearing alongside Paul Mescal, her Hamnet co-star<\/a>, she could be seen saying: “My husband [Freddie Sorensen], when I started dating him, he had two cats\u2026 This is bad as well. I\u2019m gonna get cancelled.<\/p>\n

\"jessie<\/p>\n

NBC Universal<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 \u2014 including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV<\/a><\/p>\n

“One of the cats was like a pedigree model bitch, and she staged a coup against me. I\u2019d come home, and there\u2019d just be poo on my pillow. And I was like, ‘it\u2019s me or the cats’. But I won!”<\/p>\n

After the footage circulated, she light-heartedly explained on Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/a>: “I need to clarify something for all cat lovers in the world: I am a lover of cats.<\/p>\n

“I woke up this morning to the world thinking that I really don\u2019t love cats. And it\u2019s really weighed on me all day. I felt sick! I wanna just tell cat people, that I actually auditioned to be a cat once… There’s been a [misconception].”<\/p>\n

Confirming that she tried out for Tom Hooper’s film adaptation of Cats<\/a>, she said: “I gave the worst audition of my life… how do you be a cat?”<\/p>\n

\"joe<\/p>\n

Focus Features\/\/Universal<\/p>\n

Related: Oscars confirm “unprecedented” change<\/a><\/p>\n

The Oscars take place on 15 March, and Buckley will be going into it as the clear frontrunner for Best Actress in a Leading Role, having picked up the equivalent prize at the BAFTAs<\/a>, the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards), the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Golden Globes.<\/p>\n

Other contenders in the category are Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Emma Stone for Bugonia, Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue and Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value.<\/p>\n

Hamnet is still showing in select cinemas, and is also available to buy or rent from Prime Video<\/a> and AppleTV<\/a> in the UK.<\/p>\n

The new edition of Living Legends, a 100-page all-colour celebration of Harry Styles, is here! Buy Harry Styles in newsagents or online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Shaun is an Evening News Editor at Digital Spy, with over a decade of experience reporting on all things pop culture. He has written for outlets including Metro<\/a>, Attitude<\/a>, Huffington Post, The Mirror<\/a>, Yahoo!, Pink News and Express Online<\/a>; specialising in TV, movies, soaps, music and LGBTQ+ issues. He is also a BAFTA Rocliffe-winning scriptwriter, having written episodes of the soap Hollyoaks, the official Steps musical Here & Now<\/a> and multiple Offie Award-nominated plays. He studied English Literature and Drama at the University of East Anglia, and will happily talk at length about Desperate Housewives to anyone who’ll listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscars frontrunner Jessie Buckley has insisted that she is definitively pro-cat, after a story about a pet-based ultimatum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,137241,635,161343,637,146,85,46,636,161342,161344],"class_list":["post-326162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-f1224c73-b86a-45eb-9690-a7d8714ad13c","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-jessie-buckley-responds-to-backlash-over-cat-comments","tag-subsection-oscars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}