Hollywood icon Jennifer Aniston has taken aim at JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, following his misogynistic comments about “childless cat ladies.”
On Thursday, Aniston used Instagram to criticise Donald Trump’s running mate, sharing a screenshot of a 2021 TV interview where Vance, speaking with Tucker Carlson, stated that the United States is governed by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Vance further criticised key Democratic figures, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He argued that the future of the Democratic Party is in the hands of people without children, questioning their vested interest in the country’s well-being.
“It’s just a basic fact – you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC – the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance told Carlson. “How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
An outraged Aniston responded on Thursday, voicing her disdain. “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States,” she wrote. “All I can say is … Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”
Aniston, 55, has previously spoken openly about her own fertility struggles. In 2022, she disclosed her lengthy battle with IVF during her 30s and 40s in an effort to conceive.
“It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she shared. “All the years and years and years of speculation … It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.'”
Reflecting on her journey, Aniston added, “So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a potential vice presidential pick floated by Kamala Harris, also addressed Vance’s controversial comments during an interview with CNN yesterday.
“The really sad thing is he said that after Chasten and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey,” Buttigieg shared. “He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”
Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, announced in September 2021 that they had adopted newborn twins. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had previously spoken openly about the challenges they faced during the adoption process, including “some false starts and some heartbreaks.”
Despite Harris being a stepmother to two children, she has faced an oddly regressive line of attack from some Republicans, who argue that she’s not a real parent because she doesn’t have biological children. Harris’s 25-year-old step-daughter, Ella Emhoff quickly shot down Vance’s comments with the perfect social post:
“How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like cole and I,” Ella wrote on her Instagram Stories. “I love my three parents.”
Ella’s post also included a screenshot of how her mother, Kerstin, responded to Vance’s now-viral interview.
“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” Kerstin wrote in a statement to CNN on Wednesday. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Vance, 39, is a staunch conservative senator known for his controversial policies, including opposing gender-affirming care for transgender children, supporting a 15-week abortion ban even in cases of rape or incest, and opposing divorce.