Three years after JD Vance made his disparaging remark about “childless cat ladies” to the then Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Republican vice-presidential candidate is still seeking to explain, telling NBC on Sunday that he was making a joke, but also a “real, substantive point” about the US becoming “too anti-family”.
As Vance keeps digging, let’s survey cat ladies – past and present, childless and not – to see just how miserable they are.
Magdaleine Pinceloup de la GrangeJean-Baptiste Perronneau’s portrait of Magdaleine Pinceloup de la Grange, 1747. Photograph: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty ImagesTo Vance, women who own cats and don’t have children are “miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made” and seek to spread that unhappiness to others. At other points in history, however, cats have conferred elegance and even status. The 18th-century French artist Jean-Baptiste Perronneau frequently painted his society subjects with feline companions to emphasise their refinement and sophistication. In this 1747 portrait of Magdaleine Pinceloup de la Grange, Perronneau depicts her with a chartreux, a rare French breed also favoured by the novelist Colette, the poet Charles Baudelaire and the former president Charles de Gaulle.
Mary PickfordMary Pickford holding a kitten. Photograph: John Springer Collection/Corbis via Getty ImagesBorn Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Canada, in 1892, Mary Pickford went from being a silent-film superstar known as “the girl with the curls” to one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. She co-founded the film studio United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was ahead of her time in campaigning for equal wages and creative control. According to Pickford’s biographer Eileen Whitfield, one of her recurring rows with her UA co-founder Charlie Chaplin concerned him feeding her pet cat: “Mary would often phone Chaplin, demanding the wandering pet’s return.”
Little EdieEdith Bouvier Beale at Grey Gardens in 1972. Photograph: Tom Wargacki/WireImageEdith Bouvier Beale – better known as Little Edie, the estranged cousin of Jackie Onassis – might be Vance’s archetypal “childless cat lady”. Having been a socialite and fashion model, Beale lived with her mother, Big Edie, in a dilapidated estate in East Hampton, New York, alongside many cats and raccoons, made famous by the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Eartha KittEartha Kitt with Jinx the cat. Photograph: Bettmann ArchiveCats were an inspiration for the slinky singer Eartha Kitt, who once claimed that “us females are a feline breed”. In the early 1950s, Kitt’s pet cat Jinx was a regular guest in her dressing room. Kitt later played Catwoman in the final season of the Batman television series in 1967. “Believe me, baby, this pussy cat knows how to scratch and bite,” she told a journalist in 1987. “After all, I’ve had to claw my way up from the very start.”
Gloria SteinemGloria Steinem at home in 1990. Photograph: Barbara Alper/Getty ImagesThe US journalist, activist and feminist Gloria Steinem has owned a number of cats over the years. Her favourite was her grey persian, Magritte, which Steinem said taught her about “strong will and self-authority”. When Steinem was asked in 2017 about how to raise the next generation of women and girls, she suggested taking our cues from cats: “Cats don’t let you touch them. Cats tell you what they’re going to do, and that’s that.”
Ellen RipleyEllen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in 1979’s Alien. Photograph: 20th Century Fox/AllstarEllen Ripley and Jones the ginger tomcat were the sole survivors of the USCSS Nostromo’s fateful encounter with a xenomorph in Alien. In the 1979 film, Ripley rescues Jones after the alien has picked off the rest of the crew. The sequel, Aliens, suggests that, after 57 years of cryogenic sleep, Jones (an early example of an emotional support animal) shares an apartment with Ripley on Earth.
Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift and Olivia Benson in New York City in 2014. Photograph: Raymond Hall/GC ImagesPerhaps today’s most famous “childless cat lady”, Taylor Swift owns three, including the Scottish folds Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson (named after characters from Grey’s Anatomy and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit respectively). Her ragdoll, Benjamin Button, was pictured with Swift on the cover of Time magazine when she was named person of the year in 2023 – proof that Swift has embraced her “cat lady” reputation, having previously been publicly derided for her dating history. When an interviewer at the 2015 Grammys suggested that Swift was sure to attract “lots of men”, she retorted: “I’m going to go hang out with my friends and then I go home to the cats.” In 2019, Swift said that she admires cats for their independence: “They’re very capable of dealing with their own life.”
Gigi HadidGigi Hadid with Cleo in Beverly Hills, LA. Photograph: Bauer-Griffin/GC ImagesGigi Hadid’s kitten Cleo went from rags to riches in 2015, rescued from inside a car engine one week and out to lunch with Joe Jonas the next. New York magazine’s the Cut poked fun at the model “accessorising” with the animal, noting that “the cat’s tabby coat complemented Hadid’s Nike leggings and black leather bag”. Cleo also attracted much fanfare for having her own Instagram page, although Hadid let it lapse after just three posts.
Sarah Jessica ParkerSarah Jessica Parker on the set of And Just Like That. Photograph: Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC ImagesSex and the City celebrated the single life, but Carrie Bradshaw waited until her mid-50s to embrace her destiny as a “childless cat lady”. In last year’s season two finale of the series’ spinoff And Just Like That, Carrie was given a kitten that she named Shoe, in tribute to their shared passion for boxes of Manolo Blahniks. Sarah Jessica Parker later confirmed that she took the cat – whose off-screen name is Lotus – home from the set, bringing the total number in her family to three.