In a new interview with Allure, Jennifer Aniston bares it all, both physically and emotionally. She poses for a stunning shoot in which she shows off her amazing body in a tiny Chanel bra and talks about how hard it was for her to get pregnant.
The 53-year-old told the publication that she wishes she had decided to freeze her eggs when she was younger. She said that she “threw everything” at her battle with infertility, including IVF and drinking Chinese tea, in a desperate attempt to get pregnant.
Jennifer also shot down rumors that either of her ex-husbands, Brad Pitt or Justin Theroux, divorced her because she “wouldn’t give them a kid.” She said that the constant rumors about her relationship made it harder for her to deal with her inability to have children.
‘I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,’ she said of her IVF journey, which the magazine notes was “several years ago.”
‘All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.’
The actress also said that she wished someone had told her when she was younger to freeze her eggs. However, she has now accepted that she will never have children.
‘I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, “Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.” You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed,’ she said.
Jennifer, who starred in the hit sitcom Friends for ten years, from 1994 to 2004, said she was too focused on her career to think about how her future self might want to settle down and have kids. However, she criticized the constant attention she got for not getting pregnant during her five-year marriage to Pitt.
‘I just cared about my career. And God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child,’ she said. ‘And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies. I don’t have anything to hide at this point.’
Then, when she was married to Justin, who is now 51, she was under even more scrutiny. When they broke up in 2017, it was said that part of the reason was that she couldn’t have children.
People magazine reported in February 2018, months after their divorce was made public, that the couple had tried to have children, but “it didn’t work out.” One source said that Jennifer was “sad that it didn’t happen, but it never consumed her.”
In an interview with Allure, the actress said that she has accepted that she won’t have children. She said that she feels “relief” that the possibility of having children is no longer a “maybe” that hangs over her head forever.
In fact, as she has gotten older, she has grown more confident in herself. The actress said she no longer cares what other people think or say about her, which she says is mostly because of the hard times she went through in her late 30s and early 40s.
‘I would say my late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard s***, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be,’ she explained.
‘That’s why I have such gratitude for all those s****y things. Otherwise, I would’ve been stuck being this person that was so fearful, so nervous, so unsure of who they were. And now, I don’t f***ing care.’
Jennifer also said that she “feels the best about who she is today” and that she has learned to stop telling herself “bad s***.”
She said that she had been through a “challenging period” and is only now “coming back into the light” after doing “personal work that was long overdue” and facing problems that had been a part of her life since she was a child.
Jennifer also said that she might one day write a book about her long battle with infertility, which she kept secret from the world for years to “protect” herself and her story.
‘I’m going to [write a book] one day,’ she said. ‘I’m going to stop saying, “I can’t write.”
‘I’ve spent so many years protecting my story about IVF. I’m so protective of these parts because I feel like there’s so little that I get to keep to myself. The world creates narratives that aren’t true, so I might as well tell the truth. I feel like I’m coming out of hibernation. I don’t have anything to hide.’
Jennifer’s honest comments about her struggle with infertility come 17 years after she broke up with Brad, who is now 58, after five years of marriage. During that time, she had to deal with a lot of rumors about why she and Brad didn’t have children.
She said that the constant questions about whether she was showing off a baby bump in paparazzi photos were “frustrating” and “maddening.” She said that she isn’t a “superhuman” who could take that kind of talk without feeling hurt.
The Morning Show star has talked about the rumors before, calling them “nasty” and “hurtful.” In 2021, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she had taken the rumors and gossip “personally” for years.
At the time, Jennifer hinted that she had struggled with infertility, but she didn’t say much about her IVF journey. Instead, she told the magazine: ‘It’s like, “You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t… can I have kids?” They don’t know anything.’
Jennifer went on to get married again after she broke up with Brad, with whom she is still “close friends.” She married actor Justin after a four-year relationship in August 2015. However, they got a divorce just two years later, at the end of 2017.
Since then, Jennifer hasn’t been in any high-profile relationships. Instead, she’s racked up a lot of acting and producing credits and started her own haircare brand, LolaVie.
Still, she says she hasn’t completely given up on love. She told the publication that while she would “love a relationship,” she “doesn’t have any interest” in one. However, she says she won’t say “never” about love.
She says that the personal work she has been doing lately may have made her more ready for a future relationship. The actress said that she didn’t want to date anyone until she had “done some of that work.”
