Selena Gomez served up a “childless cat ladies” joke at the Emmy Awards, making a quip referencing Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) controversial past remarks.
The 32-year-old performer appeared onstage at the 76th annual Emmy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles to present the first category of the night, best supporting actor in a comedy series, alongside her “Only Murders in the Building” co-stars, Martin Short and Steve Martin.
“Let me just say what an honor it is for me to be working with someone who looks like he’s fallen and can’t get up,” Short said in jest to Martin as the trio introduced the category.
“And let me just say what an honor it is for me to be working with someone who looks like a former women’s tennis champion,” Martin responded to Short.
“And let me say what an honor it is to work with two guys who are this far away from being childless cat ladies,” Gomez said to her co-stars, eliciting some laughs from the audience.
In a resurfaced 2021 clip from Tucker Carlson’s now-defunct Fox News show, Vance said, “We’re effectively run in this country — via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs — 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.”
Vance, former President Trump’s running mate, said last month that the comment was meant to be “sarcastic” and had been “willfully misinterpreted” by “a lot of Democrats.”
Gomez’s joke followed a virtually politics-free opener from the awards show’s hosts, former “Schitt’s Creek” stars Dan and Eugene Levy.
During their remarks at the top of the show, Eugene Levy made just a single reference to politics while urging award winners to keep acceptance speeches brief.
“If you’re gonna say anything meaningful or emotional — or, God forbid, political — just keep it short,” Levy said.
Gomez wasn’t the only Emmys presenter to reference Vance’s comments.
Candice Bergen, who starred in the 1990s sitcom, “Murphy Brown,” recalled while presenting onstage a “classic moment” from the show, when her character “was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother.”
“Oh how far we’ve come,” Bergen said in a sarcastic tone.
“Today a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, my work here is done,” Bergen, 78, said.
She then added, “Meow.”
Updated at 8:49 p.m. EDT