Jessie Buckley has been forced to issue a bizarre clarification, insisting to the world that she is a “lover of cats” after revealing she made her husband rehome his two pets earlier in their relationship.
The 36-year-old is the favourite to win the Academy Award for Best Actress following her standout performance as the grief-stricken Agnes Hathaway in Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet.
Buckley made her initial cat comments on the Happy Sad Confused podcast three months ago, but in a sure sign that the internet never forgets, they began gaining scrutiny online on Thursday, the final day of Oscars voting.
In the original interview, the star – speaking alongside her Hamnet co-star Paul Mescal – said: “My husband, when I started dating him, he had two cats… This is bad as well. I’m gonna get cancelled.
“One of the cats was like a pedigree model bitch, and she staged a coup against me. I’d come home, and there’d just be poo on my pillow. And I was like, ‘it’s me or the cats’. But I won!”
She then jokingly added: “Sorry!”
With the anecdote inexplicably gaining fresh attention, Buckley sought to put things right during an appearance on Thursday night’s episode of Tonight with Jimmy Fallon.
“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 that I really don’t love cats. It’s really weighed on me all day… I felt sick.”
Alluding to the online furore, Buckley said “there’s been a misconception because of an interview that I did”, adding: “I want to tell cat people that I actually auditioned to be a cat once. It was honestly the worst… I gave the worst audition of my life.”
When pressed by Fallon, Buckley revealed the audition was for Tom Hooper’s disastrous Cats film (so she had a lucky escape, really).
“It was so hot,” she explained. “I was sweating. I was like, licking my paws, like trying to leap.
“I was just like a hoof of an Irish woman leaping across and licking her paws. And anyway, obviously I didn’t get it.”
After the original cat anecdote resurfaced, commentators yesterday questioned if it could harm the actor’s Academy Awards campaign, with The Irish Times asking in a headline: “Could Jessie Buckley’s ‘problematic’ anti-car vibes scupper her Oscar bid?”
Academy members had until 5pm PT on Thursday (1am GMT on Friday) to cast their votes for this year’s Oscars, which take place on 15 March.
The backlash over Buckley’s anecdote about re-homing the cats came as reviews for her new film, the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed The Bride!, were published – and let’s just say, they weren’t too great either.
The Independent’s film critic Clarisse Loughrey gave the movie three stars but others were far less impressed, with The Times declaring “Jessie Buckley is catastrophically poor in this misfire”.
The Irish actor has so far enjoyed an awards season clean sweep, winning Best Actress at all the major ceremonies, including the Golden Globes, Actor Awards and Baftas.