Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Adam Sandler’s Cheetah Scare

Apparently, teenage girls aren’t the only ones to go wild at the sight of a celebrity.

In an interview with David Letterman, actor Adam Sandler revealed that he was recently attacked by a cheetah while on safari in South Africa.

“This is a true story,” he recalled. “I went there, and they let me in with a cheetah…and said I could feed the cheetah water with my hands. So I did it, and it went a little bit wrong.”

The 46-year-old then showed a video where you can see the cheetah slowly circling what appears to be his next meal (Sandler), crouching down by water. The animal pounces onto the actor’s back, but is quickly pulled off by a nearby handler.

Sandler barely had time to react. “When he jumped on me, all I was going to do was let him eat me,” he joked.

Watch the “Grown Ups” star tell the story in full below:

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.