So here’s the thing about award season: sometimes the most interesting stories aren’t about the performances themselves, but the random stuff actors say months earlier that suddenly resurfaces on Reddit. Enter Jessie Buckley, Oscar front-runner for “Hamnet,” who apparently made an ultimatum to her husband that has the internet divided into Team Cat and Team Love.
The Irish actress was chatting with co-star Paul Mescal on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast back in November when she casually dropped a bombshell. Her husband, Freddie Sorensen, had two cats when they started dating. One of them was, and I quote, “a pedigree model bitch” who staged what Buckley describes as a “coup” against her. The evidence? Poo on her pillow.
I mean, that’s pretty solid cat behavior honestly.
The Ultimatum That Launched a Thousand Reddit Arguments
Buckley didn’t dance around the issue. She gave Sorensen an ultimatum: it’s me or the cats. And somehow, she won. The cats went away. Mescal backed her up with a casual “Fuck cats, honestly,” which only added fuel to what would become a much larger fire.
Fast forward to this week, when a snippet of the interview hit Reddit and suddenly everyone had thoughts. Strong thoughts. The kind of thoughts that make you realize people have surprisingly rigid moral codes when it comes to pet ownership.
One commenter wrote: “Getting rid of your pets for someone is crazy. Asking someone to do that is even crazier.” Another went full nuclear: “If my soul mate asked me to get rid of my dog I’d say ‘guess you’re not my soul mate after all’ and kick them to the curb without a moment’s thought.”
It’s the kind of internet drama that’s equal parts entertaining and kind of sad because it reveals how people genuinely feel about their relationships versus their animals.
The Nuance Everyone’s Missing
Here’s where it gets interesting though. Some people actually defended Buckley’s position, noting that if someone genuinely had allergies or some serious concern that made pet ownership difficult, the conversation changes. Maybe she wasn’t being a villain. Maybe she had legitimate issues with living with cats.
But that’s not really what happened here. According to Buckley’s own account, this was about a cat being hostile to her specifically. Which is fair, but also… you could’ve worked through it? Or compromised? Or literally anything other than giving your partner a “them or me” speech?
The whole thing is funny in that painfully human way where you realize relationships involve actual negotiations and compromises that can get genuinely weird sometimes.
Where We Are Now
Buckley is still the front-runner for the Oscar for Best Actress for her absolutely heart-wrenching performance as Anne Hathaway in “Hamnet.” She’s already won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and an Actor Award. Her performance in Chloe Zhao’s period drama about Shakespeare grieving his son is genuinely remarkable.
The cat incident probably won’t cost her the award. But it will make people smile every time they remember that the year Jessie Buckley dominated awards season, she also became the actress who hated cats enough to make her husband choose.
The real question is: will this interview resurface during her Oscar acceptance speech, and will she address it?
