Jennifer Aniston has revealed she spent twenty years privately attempting to build a family while enduring public speculation that portrayed her as selfish and career-obsessed. The 56-year-old actress shared deeply personal details about her fertility struggles in a candid interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, published Thursday.
The former Friends star disclosed that she spent years attempting to conceive while the media crafted narratives suggesting she chose work over motherhood. Speaking from her Los Angeles home, Aniston told the magazine that people didn’t know her story or what she’d been experiencing behind closed doors, explaining she never publicly discussed her medical challenges because such matters aren’t anyone’s business.
But there comes a moment when you simply can’t ignore the noise anymore. The constant speculation about why she wouldn’t have children, coupled with labels like “selfish” and “workaholic,” eventually took its toll despite her efforts to maintain privacy. She’s just a human being trying to navigate extraordinary circumstances, and those labels hurt even someone with her level of fame.
Aniston underwent unsuccessful IVF treatments during this period, a journey she kept entirely private until writing an op-ed in 2016. That piece wasn’t solely about her own experience; she wrote it thinking about countless other women dealing with similar fertility challenges. Many of her friends were going through IVF at the time, which made speaking out feel necessary for a larger community of women facing the same struggles.
The actress also addressed what she once called an “absolute lie” regarding her 2005 divorce from Brad Pitt. Persistent rumors suggested Pitt left because she refused to give him children, a narrative that gained traction after he went on to have six children with Angelina Jolie. Aniston chose silence as her defense against this particular gossip storm, though the false story continued circulating for years.
More recently, Aniston has been linked to wellness coach Jim Curtis, whom she reportedly soft-launched on Instagram in September and who supported her at The Morning Show season 4 premiere. Her marriage to actor Justin Theroux ended in 2018, though the two remain close friends. When Theroux remarried, Aniston was reportedly among the first to congratulate him.
Reflecting on media scrutiny, Aniston noted that while tabloid culture has softened somewhat since the 1990s, its cruelty simply migrated online where anonymous commenters can write whatever they want without accountability. The shift from print to digital hasn’t made celebrity gossip kinder; it’s merely democratized the ability to spread harmful speculation.
Throughout the interview, Aniston spoke warmly about her Friends castmates, describing Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, the late Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc as her family. She knows if she needed anything, she could reach out to their tight-knit group and receive support within seconds. They essentially married each other through that shared experience, creating bonds that transcend typical friendships.
Now entering what she calls a “new season of calm,” Aniston says she feels stronger and more grounded than ever before. Her earlier years were defined by others telling her story; these later years are defined by her insistence on writing it herself. She’s found extraordinary power in the wisdom that comes with age, rejecting cultural narratives that suggest women’s value diminishes over time.
The actress emphasized that older women have tremendous contributions to make, noting she’s discovered the opposite of society’s expectations to be true. The older she gets, the more she recognizes how much strength exists in knowing exactly who you are, without apology or explanation.
Jennifer Aniston’s complete interview appears in the November 2025 issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, available from October 9.
Source: newsghana.com.gh
