Jennifer Aniston isn’t usually one to wade into political discussions but lately, the Friends alum has been more open about her political views.
Taking to Instagram stories on July 24, Aniston shared a video of J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s Vice President nominee, in 2021, speaking about the country being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies”—specifically calling out Vice President Kamala Harris, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
“We’re effectively run, in this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance says in the Fox News interview clip. “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. And 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?”
In response to the video, Aniston wrote, “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.”
“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 is referring to Vance’s decision to vote against a bill that would protect the right to IVF, after an Alabama court case threatened women’s access to the fertility treatment.
Vance also supports a national abortion band. He made this clear during a 2022 debate, when he said, “My view on this is, generally speaking, Ohio’s gonna wanna have different abortion laws than California, than Texas, and I think Ohio should have that right. But some minimum national standard is totally fine with me.”
Considering her own fertility challenges, reproductive freedom is understandably, an issue that Aniston feels strongly about.
“I used to take it all very personally — the pregnancy rumors and the whole ‘Oh, she chose career over kids’ assumption,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021.. “It’s like, ‘You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?’ They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.”
After Vance’s 2021 comment, Buttigieg revealed that the comment was particularly upsetting because he and his husband had been trying to adopt a child.
“The really sad thing is, [Vance] said that after Chasten and I had been through 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,” Buttigieg told CNN.
More than ever, celebrities have being weighing into the political discussions surrounding the 2024 election—you can read all of the celebrity reactions to Biden’s resignation here.
This article originally appeared on Marie Claire Australia and is republished here with permission.
