A major international spectacle drew global attention this week, pulling world leaders, power players, and cultural heavyweights into the same arena — and placing every arrival under a microscope.
Among those stepping into the spotlight was Vice President JD Vance, who arrived alongside his wife, Usha Vance.
The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games are currently underway in Italy.
The Opening Ceremony took place in Milan on Friday at the San Siro Stadium, and Team USA received cheers as they entered the stadium sporting Ralph Lauren. However, not everyone was welcomed with the same enthusiasm from the crowd.
Vance and his wife were shown waving mini American flags on the stadium’s Jumbotron during the Parade of Nations, until the moment abruptly soured. The cheers faded into boos, triggering laughter across social media. As the camera lingered, his wife kept smiling and glanced toward him, seemingly waiting to see how he’d react, before the broadcast quickly cut away.
The boos are heard clearly in a video shared online with the caption, “JD Vance was VERY LOUDLY booed during the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Love to see it!”
The Trump administration, and Vance in particular, defended ICE agents after they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month during separate immigration protests incidents. ICE agents have been compared to the Gestapo over their tactics as they arrest residents, and protests against the agency are constant. The crowd clearly let Vance know what they thought with their welcome of boos.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Adrienne Arsenault, covering the tableau for CBC, also seemed to enjoy the booing. “There’s the vice president, JD Vance, and his wife, Usha,” she said before noting the loud boos coming from the crowd. “Ooop…those are not …ehhhh…. those are a lot of ‘boos’ for him — whistling, jeering, some applause.”
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After the video was shared on Threads, users seemed to enjoy the booing of the vice president, and they reacted to the public rebuke.
“The commentator going ‘Ooop…those are not …ehhhh….’ and then sticking with it and describing it is just [pinched fingers emoji], one user wrote.”
“The audible guffaw that just left my body,” added another of Vance’s snub.
“LOUDER PLEASE,” joked another user while using Trump’s signature all-caps format when insulting folks online, prompting another to exclaim, “HAHAHAHAHA.”
“Boos weren’t loud enough for me,” another noted, prompting one user to reply, “Boo the Fascists!!!” Someone else just said, “OH MY.”
Vance was also criticized last December following a recent Christmas party at his residence with guests like Sylvester Stallone. The vice president gushed that Trump complained that he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio wore crappy shoes, so he gifted them both several pairs.
“Today I’m in the Oval Office with the president of the United States and our great secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and we’re talking about something really, really important,” he said.
“And the president kind of holds up his hand and says, ‘No, no, hold on a second. There’s something much more important: shoes.’ He leans in and peers over the Resolute Desk and says, ‘Marco, JD — you guys have sh-tty shoes. We gotta get you better shoes.’ So he goes out and grabs the catalog. There happens to be another politician in the room. I won’t say who, and you’ll find out why in a second.”
“By the way, the president is gifting us four pairs of shoes,” he continued. “I think four pairs for Marco, and he’s actually asking our sizes in the middle of this conversation,” he said before adding that the unnamed politician only had a shoe size of 7.
“You know, you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size,” he continued.
Then he brought Usha into it. “We won’t ask the second lady for comment on that particular topic,” he said, suggesting she could confirm his size 13 … feet.
The vice president’s suggestive remarks were about as unwelcome to some as his presence at the Olympics.
