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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Actors at the 2024 Emmys repeatedly called out JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comments.
Throughout the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards – which took place on Sunday, September 15 – multiple actors, including Selena Gomez and Candice Bergen, referenced the Republican vice presidential nominee’s disparaging comments against women.
As Gomez presented the first award of the night alongside with her Only Murders in the Building co-stars, Steve Martin and Martin Short, she roasted the actors by adding: “And let me say what an honor it is to work with two guys who are this far away from being childless cat ladies.”
Later in the show, Bergen took a dig at Vance’s comments while speaking about her series Murphy Brown, noting that female characters on television have come a long way since the show first hit the screen in 1988. “In one classic moment, my character was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother,” she said. “Oh, how far we’ve come. Today a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids.”
“So as they say, my work here is done. Meow,” she concluded, proudly cementing her “cat lady” status.
In 2021, Vance told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that “childless cat ladies” were running the country to the ground. “We’re effectively run in this country, be it the Democrats, be it our corporate oligarchs, 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,” he told Carlson.
“Look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance said. “How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
While US Vice President Harris does not have biological children, she has been the stepmother of her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children for a decade. After Vance’s statement resurfaced, Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff quickly came to Harris’s defense.
“She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it,” she said in a statement to CNN.
From late-night shows to Taylor Swift’s recent endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, Vance’s resurfaced comments have been widely mocked by Democrats and Republicans alike.
