Oscars – Pain In The Bud

An Actress Might Lose Out On An Oscar Because She Says She Hates Cats

The reaction says volumes about our society’s sense of proportionality, our collective understanding of animals, and our ability to politely disagree on topics we feel strongly about.

This hasn’t been a great week for feline PR.

Not only did two celebrities come out with bizarrely forceful anti-cat sentiments, but from their statements, they both “hate” cats because they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior.

The fallout hasn’t been good either, for the actress and rapper involved, or for the more extreme animal lovers who have responded with disproportionate rage.

The first comes from rapper Docheii, who insists cats “genuinely aren’t friendly animals.”

“yall be scratched and beat tf up by your own animals I can’t lmaoooo,” the towering intellect from Florida wrote on social media.

Cats, she asserted, “don’t wanna be domesticated.”

Presumably she got that information from the Pew Center for Feline Public Opinion, and the rest of us simply aren’t privy to the latest opinion polls among cats. And here I thought our furry friends were mostly ambivalent about anything that doesn’t involve napping, playing and eating. (I took an informal poll of Bud. He responded with a simple “Fetch me a snack, will you, human?”)

A promo shot of Doechii, real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon

Regardless, even if there was some way to ascertain how cats feel about a process their ancestors initiated — one that takes thousands of years to result in speciation — it’s irrelevant. The decision was made 10,000 years ago when The First Kitteh was drawn to a human settlement by the promise of rodential prey in abundance.

Modern cats have no more say in the matter than we have in our ancestors slaughtering dodos. It happened. We can’t change the past.

The actress vs the ‘pedigree bitch’

The second bit of anti-feline sentiment comes from Jessie Buckley, an Irish actress who is weirdly proud of forcing her husband to ditch his two pet cats when they began dating. She talks as if she’s been waging a personal war against the species, and her reason for disliking felines also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their behavior.

Buckley’s comments were made on a podcast late in 2025, but resurfaced this week and went viral as her Oscar buzz reached its peak. On the podcast, Buckley said one of her husband’s cats was a “pedigree model bitch” who was orchestrating a “coup” against her.

She thinks the cat had it out for her: “I’d come home and there’d just be, like, poo on my pillow.”

This is actually sad, because people who really know cats, who understand why they behave certain ways, will immediately understand that they don’t have accidents out of spite. If the cat was eliminating outside her litter box, there was a legitimate underlying problem causing her a great deal of stress.

She could have been injured, she could have been sick, or she could have been plagued by the cumulative stress brought on by the presence of a hostile woman who ludicrously saw her as competition. Our furry friends are much more perceptive than generally realized, especially when it comes to our emotional states, and Buckley’s hostility would have been immediately apparent.

Buckley with co-star Paul Mezcal, who was equally enthusiastic in his intense dislike of felines, telling an interviewer: “Yeah, f— cats!”

Alas, Buckley didn’t reluctantly ask her then-boyfriend to give up his cats. She demanded it, then did a victory lap when he complied, which makes me suspect she was merely taking the whip out for a test drive before further commitment. If he’s willing to abandon two pets, he’s almost certainly going to be a pushover when she begins to prune his friends from his life, starts dressing him the way she likes, maybe even monitors his phone. *shudder*

“It’s me or the cats,” Buckley said she told her husband. “But I won!”

Congratulations, I guess?

The rage of cat lovers

As ludicrous as it seems, the backlash may cost Buckley an Oscar. Personally I don’t keep up with the approximately 200 awards ceremonies actors hold to fete themselves annually, but apparently Buckley turned in a solid performance in a movie called Hamnet.

She was considered the front-runner for an Academy Award. Now critics are openly wondering about her chances.

As always, these sorts of statements reveal a lot more about the people involved than they do about cats. I just wish people understood the species a little better, so maybe attitudes won’t default to anger or hostility if, say, a scared cat scratches a person who corners her, or a kitty with a stomach bug pukes on the carpet.

When a toddler gets sick, we don’t respond by yelling at the kid, blaming him and chasing him off. We make sure he’s okay, give him some medicine or take him to the doctor, and clean up the mess. Cats are essentially furry little toddlers, with the same innocence as children. When we adopt them, we agree to care for them.

Both Buckley and Docheii have been hammered on social media since their comments went viral, and it’s important to address that too. They expressed opinions. That doesn’t make them “pieces of s—,” “worthless human beings,” “scum” or any of the other nasty things some people have been saying.

We can disagree with them without overreacting, even in the age of dehumanizing online conversation.

Maintain yourselves!

And honestly, it makes all of us look bad. The day Walter Palmer returned to work is forever seared into my mind. Palmer was the American dentist who infamously and illegally lured Cecil the lion out of a protected area and killed him to take his head as a trophy in 2015.

Worse, Palmer — who had a history of getting in trouble for breaking the law while hunting — killed Cecil with a bow and arrow in order to claim some meaningless hunting record for himself and bungled the point-blank kill shot his guides had lined up for him. Cecil, who was an iconic lion with a distinct mane, suffered for hours before he died.

People were understandably angry, and protesters showed up outside Palmer’s office the day he returned to work. Most of them behaved themselves. But as Palmer made his way toward the front door of his dental practice, one of the protesters let loose a blood-curdling scream and shouted “WAAAAALTER PAAAAALMER!“, vowing vengeance for Cecil.

Palmer returning to work while media and protesters crowd him.

That moment of unhinged, unregulated rage overshadowed the good intentions of every person who registered their displeasure calmly and politely — and provided ample ammunition to those who enjoy painting all animal lovers as lunatics.

Buckley and Doechii expressed opinions we don’t like, and that’s their right. The best thing we can do is explain why they’ve misinterpreted feline behavior, and show them that cats really are loving, friendly animals — it just takes a little patience and trust. I say that as the faithful servant of a cat who can be particularly prickly and a complete lovebug, depending on the circumstance.

In the meantime, celebrities who hate cats should probably take a pass on broadcasting their intense dislike and save themselves the resulting headache. Sadly, we no longer have any sense of proportionality when it comes to disagreements, and no one gets a fair shake when things are litigated via social media.

Buddy Wins Oscar For Star Turn As Starving Cat

Critics and audiences alike have raved about the feline’s convincing performance as a cat who hasn’t eaten in minutes, possibly even hours.

LOS ANGELES – Buddy the Cat sat on the coffee table, shoulders drooped, gaze fixed on his human.

With a faint, high-pitched mew and a slight quiver of his mouth, his sad eyes seemed to grow even bigger as he watched his pal take a bite of cheese.

“It’s as if he’s saying ‘Et tu, Big Buddy? Don’t we do everything together? Where is Buddy’s snack?'” the normally savage film critic Anthony Lane said. “I’m man enough to admit this scene made me weep.”

Lane wasn’t alone in expressing that sentiment, and as rave reviews continued to pour in, praise for the gray tabby cat’s performance morphed into Oscar buzz, creating a sense of inevitability.

Now Buddy has a new prize for his shelf to display alongside his Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest championship belt, his national bowling trophies and his World Series ring. He’s the first cat to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, cementing his legacy as a master thespian.

“The way he inhabits the role of a starving cat is nothing short of remarkable,” said Christy Lemire, the longtime film critic for the Associated Press. “Logically, my mind knows this is a feline who has never missed a snack, let alone a meal. He’s chubby, sedentary and I doubt he can entirely groom himself. And yet his performance is so committed, so all-encompassing, that I can actually see a starving cat. His acting chops are phenomenal, generational even.”

Those close to the mercurial tabby say he is a method actor who remains in character even when the cameras are not rolling.

“He had me absolutely convinced he was on the verge of starving to death,” said one longtime friend of Big Buddy, Buddy the Cat’s human servant. “I said, ‘What have you been doing to this poor cat?’ The little guy barely has the energy to walk, and his meow is imbued with a deep sorrow, the kind of sadness that can only come from hours of being deprived of snacks.”

A woman who gave only her first name, Melissa, lives two doors down from the Buddies. She sheepishly admitted to breaking into Casa de Buddy to feed the feline while his human was out.

“His meows are tortured,” Melissa said. “I began to wonder: does my neighbor ever feed his cat? Should I call Cat Protective Services?”

Upon entering the apartment and getting her first proper look at Buddy, Melissa said she was taken aback.

“I was expecting skin and bones, not fur and flab.”

Still, Buddy’s performance was so convincing that Melissa said she cooked two thick pieces of filet mignon for the little guy, which he quickly devoured.

“He inhaled them, belched and immediately meowed insistently for more,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Later, she said, she spoke to another neighbor who said she’d fed Buddy meatballs, deli meats and roast turkey that same day.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Buddy is currently considering half a dozen new scripts, including one about a starving cat who goes to space and a Western about a starving cat who has been framed for murder.

“He’s not afraid of being typecast,” said his agent, Ari Gold. “This is his wheelhouse. Fans can’t wait to see what he eats next.”

Oscars Shock! Garfield Slaps Buddy After Joke About Wife Venus

The Acatemy Awards turned into a beatdown on Sunday night after Garfield took exception to a joke by Buddy the Cat.

Buddy the Cat was cruising through Sunday night’s Acatemy Awards ceremony and razzing the celebrity cats in attendance when things took a turn for the bizarre and violent.

After joking that Alejandro Baldwinito the Spanish cat would have to lose Best Actor after his wife, Ellaria, lost Best Actress, comedian Buddy turned to Garfield and his better half, Venus the two-faced kitty.

“Venus, I love you! Two-Face in the next Batman movie, can’t wait to see it!” Buddy said, drawing laughs from the crowd — including from Garfield, who appeared to find the joke hilarious.

But when Garfield noticed Venus staring daggers at him, he cleared his throat and stood up.

“Uh oh!” Buddy said as Garfield padded over to him. “Uh oh! It’s…”

Buddy was stopped mid-sentence as Garfield paw-slapped him hard across the face, drawing shocked gasps from the stars in attendance.

“Oh, wow! Wow!” Buddy said. “Garfield just slapped the s— out of me!”

“Keep Venus’ name out your —-ing mouth!” Garfield yelled, settling back into his seat.

“Wow, dude!” Buddy replied. “It was a Batman joke!”

“Keep my wife’s name out your —ing mouth!” Garfield repeated, casting a glance at Venus as Lupita Purrongo looked on behind them, open-mouthed and horrified.

“I’m going to, okay?” Buddy said, momentarily at a loss for words.

“That was, uh, the greatest night in the history of television!” Buddy said, recovering and cutting some of the tension in the room.

Just minutes later, Garfield accepted the Oscar for Best Actor and had a meltdown on stage.

“I do it for love!” the rotund orange tabby said. “I have to protect the people around me, and Richard, King Richard, he once said, you know… Who has lasagna? Does anyone have lasagna?”