What Was She Thinking? Tippi Hedren's Regrets Over Letting Lion Around Teenage Melanie Griffith

Tippi Hedren tells INSIDE EDITION she regrets letting a lion roam around her home with her young daughter, Melanie Griffith.

Vintage pictures of a 17-year-old Melanie Griffith posing with a wild lion have come back to haunt her mother.

The star of the Hitchcock classic The Birds, actress Tippi Hedren, spoke to INSIDE EDITION about the Life magazine photos that just resurfaced on the internet; “We were doing stupid things with that lion. I have to tell you I get sick to my stomach looking at these pictures.”

The pictures were shot in 1971 at her house, in of all places, posh Sherman Oaks, California. In one photo, Griffin, in a bikini, is getting out of a pool as the lion appears to bitting her leg. Another shows her sleeping with a lion in bed. And one even shows Hedren spitting water into the lion's mouth.

He now know how unpredictable lions can be when taken outside of the wild. Recently, a model was attacked out of the blue.

Back when these photos were taken, little was known about how dangerous wild animals could be. Today, Hedren knows better as a renowned wild animal expert, who now runs the Shambala Preserve outside Los Angeles. She still regrets the day she let her daughter get so close to a lion.

“I shall always be living it down,” she concluded.