Candice Bergen wasn't too shy about criticizing J.D. Vance while presenting an award at the 2024 Emmy Awards ceremony on Sunday.
The 78-year-old “Murphy Brown” star took the stage to present her award for best actress in a comedy series, referencing a storyline from the 1990s sitcom in which her character revealed she was pregnant and planned to raise the child as a single mother. The storyline was slammed by critics at the time, including then-Vice President Dan Quayle, who objected to the lead character having a child while unmarried. He argued that the storyline glamorized the breakdown of traditional family values.
“For 11 years, I had the incredible honor of playing the lead role in a comedy series called 'Murphy Brown,'” Bergen said onstage.
Candice Bergen speaks onstage at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Peacock Theater on September 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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“I was surrounded by great, interesting actors and had a fantastic script to work with. And there was one great scene where my character was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother.”
“We've come so far,” she continued, “that today, a Republican vice presidential nominee would never attack a woman for having a child,” she joked.
“As they say, my job here is done. Meow!” Bergen added.
Her comments come as Vance prepares to take office in 2021 as the U.S. ““You have a bunch of childless catwomen who are miserable about their lives and the choices they've made, and they're trying to make the rest of the country miserable too,” he said. He later defended the remarks as a “joke” that was “deliberately misconstrued by the Democrats,” but the reiteration has become a favorite attack line for Trump's critics since Trump picked him as his running mate in July.
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 11: J.D. Vance attends Charity Day 2024 hosted by the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund at the BGC Group on September 11, 2024 in New York City. (Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images, courtesy of Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund)
Bergen's comments appeared to be a comparison between Vance and Quayle, who in a 1992 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco criticized CBS and Bergen for “ridiculing the importance of fathers by having children alone and calling it merely a lifestyle choice.”
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The speech, dubbed the “Murphy Brown speech” at the time, was a response to the Rodney King riots that had rocked Los Angeles a few weeks earlier, with Brown arguing that part of the cause of the riots was the breakdown of “traditional” family structures.
“It doesn't help matters that prime-time television shows like Murphy Brown, the quintessential modern, intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mock the importance of fathers by calling single parenting simply a lifestyle choice,” Quayle told the audience.
The cast of “Murphy Brown,” the groundbreaking comedy about the legendary news host of the same name and her biting views on current events. (Photo: Robert Trachtenberg/CBS via Getty Images)
Bergen wasn't the only celebrity to slam Vance: Selena Gomez also addressed the comments during her speech at the 76th Emmy Awards, joking that it was an “honor” to work with her “Only Murders in the Building” co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short, who are “the furthest thing from a childfree cat lady.”
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Taylor Swift signed her endorsement for Kamala Harris with “Taylor Swift, childfree woman who loves cats,” and included a photo of herself cuddling a cat.
The Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News' Tracy Wright contributed to this report.
