Jessie Buckley has insisted that she's a "lover of cats" after coming under fire for her anti-cat stance earlier this week.
The Oscar-nominated actress has come under fire after a story she shared in a November 2025 interview went viral in the final days of Oscars voting.
In the interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Hamnet star revealed that she doesn't like cats and that she made her husband choose between her and his pets when they started living together.
Following the backlash, which some experts believe could ruin her Oscar chances, Buckley appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday and clarified her stance on cats.
"I need to clarify something for all cat lovers in the world," she said. "I am a lover of cats. I woke up this morning to the world thinking I really don't love cats and it really weighed on me all day. I felt sick. I want to just tell cat people.
"There's been misconceptions because of an interview that I did. They asked me if I was a dog or a cat (person) and I'm thinking I'm probably a quarter cat and three-quarters dog... Anyways, I love cats."
Buckley did not address her comments about giving her husband Freddie Sorensen an ultimatum.
During a joint interview with her Hamnet co-star Paul Mescal in November, she said, "I don't like cats... cats are mean... My husband, when I started dating him, he had two cats. This is bad so I'm going to get cancelled. But one of the cats was like, a pedigree model b**ch. And she staged like a coup against me. I'd come home and there'd just be like, poo on my pillow. And I was like, 'It's me or the cats.' But I won!"
The Irish star, who married Sorensen in 2023, is widely expected to win the Best Actress Oscar for Hamnet following her clean sweep this awards season. Final Oscars voting closed on Thursday, and the ceremony will take place on 15 March.
