Jennifer Aniston issues rare statement over vice presidential candidate’s controversial comments

The Friends star very rarely wades into politics, but there is one issue that has fired her up about the US election.

Jennifer Aniston has issued a defiant statement in response to comments made by the Republican vice presidential candidate, who described women without children as “miserable cat ladies”.

The US actress, 55, previously opened up about her “challenging” fertility struggles for the first time in 2022 following years of tabloid speculation, saying she went through “hard s**t” privately while trying to conceive.

A resurfaced video going viral on X shows US Senator J.D. Vance, who Donald Trump recently selected as his running mate for the upcoming election, during a TV interview on Fox News in 2021, in which he criticised Vice President Kamala Harris for having no children of her own.

Harris, 59, is a stepmother to two kids with her husband Doug Emhoff.

At the time, Mr Vance, 39, said 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.”

Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance. Picture: Alex Wong/Getty Images via AFP

Further, he claimed women have “no direct stake” in the country.

Aniston, who doesn’t have children, re-posted a clip of the exchange on her Instagram story Thursday, writing she “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,” Aniston continued.

“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.”

Jennifer Aniston hit out at Mr Vance’s comments. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Aniston penned a furious statement on Instagram.

Mr Vance is a father-of-three, including one two-year-old daughter, Mirabel. He has endorsed a series of conservative policies, including opposing abortion and same-sex marriage.

Aniston, for her part, famously gave a rare, candid interview with Allure in December 2022, in which she revealed her long-term desire to have children despite media reports claiming her 2005 marriage breakdown with Brad Pitt was because she didn’t want kids, and that she had prioritised her career over becoming a mother.

During “all the years of [media] speculation,” the Friends star was “going through IVF [and] drinking Chinese teas.”

Aniston on the cover of Allure in December 2022. Picture: Zoey Grossman

“I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.’ You just don’t think it,” she said at the time. “So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

Aniston, who clarified she was trying to get pregnant several years ago, went on to say she had “zero regrets” and now “actually feel[s] a little relief.”

“There is no more, ‘Can I? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.’ I don’t have to think about that anymore,” she explained.

Aniston was married to Pitt from 2000 to 2005, and Justin Theroux from 2015 to 2017.

Originally published as Jennifer Aniston issues rare statement over vice presidential candidate’s controversial comments