Jennifer Aniston criticises JD Vance’s ‘childless cat ladies’ comment

Jennifer Aniston has taken issue with JD Vance’s description of some of the most powerful people in US politics as “childless cat ladies”.

Writing on Instagram, the actor said: “I truly cannot believe this is coming from a potential VP. All I can say is … Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day”.

Aniston was responding to recently resurfaced 2021 comments by Vance, who told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the US was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

He continued: “Look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Aniston has been increasingly vocal about her own struggles with fertility, including failed attempts at aided conception.

Aniston added to her post that she hoped Vance’s own daughter “will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”

Vance, who has three children has been vocal about his opposition to abortion and even fertility treatment.

Speaking last week at a campaign speech in Michigan, Harris drew attention to the stances adopted on women’s rights by Trump’s new running-mate.

“Understand, this is a fellow who – in the United States Senate – participated in blocking protections for IVF,” she said. “This is an individual who has made every indication that he is for a national abortion ban.”

In 2016, Aniston wrote an essay for the then Huffington Post about enduring many years of tabloid gossip and speculation over whether she wanted or could have children.

“Here’s where I come out on this topic: We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child,” she wrote. “We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone.

“Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own ‘happily ever after’ for ourselves.”

In 2022, she told Allure such fixation had been made more difficult to handle as she had undergone IVF, without success.

“All the years and years and years of speculation … It was really hard,” she said. “I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.”

She added: “I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

Kamala Harris is stepmother to husband Doug Emhoff’s son Cole, 29, and daughter Ella, 25.

On Wednesday, their mother, Kerstin Emhoff, joined those expressing outrage over Vance’s comments.

“These are baseless attacks,” she said. “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

Meanwhile, Buttigieg also has children with his husband, Chasten. Responding to Vance’s comments, he said that they had been made after “a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey. He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”

Major US celebrities have already exerted considerable leverage in this year’s election, with George Clooney’s op-ed in the New York Times calling on Joe Biden to step down considered a notable gamechanger.