Jessie Buckley has insisted she "loves" cats after going viral for insisting her now-husband rehomed his pets.

The 36-year-old actress caused a stir in November when she admitted she had given Freddie Sorensen - who she wed in 2023 - an ultimatum before she agreed to move in with him but she has now "clarified" the misconception that she's got a grudge against all felines.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast last 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****. And she staged like a coup against me.

"I'd come home and there'd just be like, poo on the pillow. And I was like, 'It's me or the cats.' I won."

But now, Jessie has insisted she is a "lover of cats".

She said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: "I need to clarify something for all cat lovers in the world.

"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, I actually auditioned to be a cat once. And 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."

Jimmy said he is 100% a dog person.

Jessie added: "Anyways, I love cats."

The Hamnet star then confirmed she had auditioned for the Cats musical, but gave the "worst" try-out of her life.

She grimaced and said: "I'm making that face because honestly, I gave the worst audition of my life. Well, how do you be a cat?!… It was so hot. I was sweating. I was like licking my paw… Obviously, I didn't get it."

The Bride actress - who gave birth to a baby girl last year - recently admitted she was "scared of love" before settling down with mental health worker Freddie.

She told Deadline.com: "I think love is terrifying. I have been scared of love for a lot of my life, and it took me a long while to discover what that word even meant for me, not just the idea of it.

"I think sometimes love at first sight, it's too much of a projected idea for it to … I think it takes … You can't just make a meal. You have to cook it."

When asked if she believes in "love at first sight", Jessie replied: "Yeah, I do. I think it's not what I ever expect it to be. The real stuff is not ever what I expect it to be.

"So even that magnetism might transcend or transform into a very different, layered, complex, full thing. And I guess that depends on where you are in your life and how open you are to that."