Justin Theroux reacted when his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston had a public exchange with JD Vance, the US Senator from Ohio who is running for vice president on Donald Trump’s ticket.

“I still love her very much, so of course I have a protective instinct,” Theroux told the British The times in an interview published on Tuesday. “But she rejected the criticism, as she should.”

After resurfaced footage showed Vance saying the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies,” Aniston responded: “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is lucky enough to have children of her own one day. I hope she doesn’t have to resort to IVF as a second option, because you’re trying to take that away from her, too.”

In November 2022, Aniston said Lure“The path to having a baby was a difficult one for me,” and she described how she had tried unsuccessfully to undergo artificial insemination.

Theroux was married to the former Friends Star in 2015, but they divorced in 2018. He has had kind words to say about his ex-wife in the years since they announced their separation in February of that year.

“I would say we’ve remained friends,” he told PEOPLE in April 2021. “We don’t talk every day, but we talk on the phone. We FaceTime. We text each other. Like it or not, we didn’t have a dramatic breakup and we love each other. I mean it when I say I value our friendship.”

Theroux is newly engaged to Nicole Brydon Bloom, whom he has been dating since 2023, PEOPLE confirmed this week. He reportedly proposed to her in Italy, where he is promoting his latest film. Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceat the Venice Film Festival.

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