Taylor Swift has long been a certified cat lover. Just scroll her social media for proof.
The singer is the proud owner of three cats – Dr. Meredith Grey, Detective Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button – named after some of her favorite fictional characters.
she is even starred in the 2019 Cats film and proclaimed her love in lyrics like “karma is a cat purring in my lap ’cause it loves me” and “guess I’ll just stumble on home to my cats”.
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So it wasn’t particularly surprising to fans that when Swift endorsed Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Instagram following the first presidential debate, she posted a photo with her youngest cat Benjamin.
The snap is of Swift and her cat on the cover of the 2023 TIME Person of the Year issue.
But one detail that may have left some people scratching their heads is how the pop star chose to sign off her endorsement message.
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“With love and hope, Taylor Swift Childless Cat Lady,” the singer, who does not have any children of her own wrote.
Those last three words in particular have a much deeper meaning – and it all comes back to how she’s supporting Vice President Harris.
Back in 2021, the now Republican Vice President nominee JD Vance infamously referred to Harris as a “childless cat lady” on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, despite the politician being a stepmother.
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Vance claimed the country 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.”
“If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he complained at the time.
His comments placed value on politicians – namely women – having kids.
Three years on – and after Harris announced she would be running for president in the 2024 election – the controversial interview comments resurfaced online.
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Vance’s viral remarks received widespread backlash with even A-list actress Jennifer Aniston criticizing him for his stance on female reproductive rights.
Meanwhile Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff fired back at Vance on her Instagram story.
Ella is the daughter of Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff. Ella along with her brother Cole are the stepchildren of Harris – or ‘Momala’ as they call her.
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“How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?” Ella said, adding “I love my three parents.”
In response to Vance’s comments, a zoom call was organized by the group Pet Lovers for Kamala and hosted by Christine Pelosi.
“When JD Vance couched his opinion on our freedom, we decided that the cat ladies are striking back,” Christine’s mother, US politician Nancy Pelosi said on the call.
In light of the criticism, Vance defended his resurfaced comments in July during an appearance on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show,
“Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said,” Vance doubled down saying his remarks at their core were “true”.
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Vance explained he had been “criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”
Now it seems Taylor Swift has joined the proud “childless cat lady” club – and Harris’ running mate Tim Walz is feeling “incredibly grateful” for the pop star’s vote.
“I say that also as a cat owner – a fellow cat owner. That was eloquent and it was clear,” Walz told host Rachel Maddow on MSNBC after the debate. “And that’s the type of courage we need in America, to stand up.”
“We’ve seen it out of those Republicans who were at the DNC, we’ve seen it out of women who would like to have their own personal lives kept personal, but are forced to go out there ‘because they nearly died because they can’t get abortion services in a pregnancy,” Walz said.
“And now you have somebody like Taylor Swift, coming out and making that very clear.”
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