Last year, Jennifer Aniston launched a haircare brand called Lolavie. That seems to be why she’s on the December cover of Allure, to promote Lolavie, although The Morning Show also gets a few mentions in this Allure piece. Aniston has definitely taken several steps back from being a “America’s TV sweetheart/wronged woman/tabloid queen,” which was largely her persona for two decades. When Aniston and Justin Theroux broke up (and remember, they were never married), she just stopped participating in tabloid culture in the same way. In recent years, she’ll maybe give one interview every eight months and she always makes news for those pieces, then she disappears again and we can go months without hearing anything about her. Anyway, Aniston has a lot to say in this piece, a lot about how she tried to have a baby, about social media and tabloid culture and about tons of other stuff. Some highlights:
When someone comparing her to a silent film star: “I’m a little choked up. I feel like it’s dying. There are no more movie stars. There’s no more glamour. Even the Oscar parties used to be so fun….”
She hates social media: “I hate social media. I’m not good at it. It’s torture for me. The reason I went on Instagram was to launch this line [Lolavie]. Then the pandemic hit and we didn’t launch. So I was just stuck with being on Instagram. It doesn’t come naturally.”
Growing up without social media: “I’m really happy that we got to experience growing up, being a teenager, being in our 20s without this social media aspect. Look, the internet, great intentions, right? Connect people socially, social networking. It goes back to how young girls feel about themselves, compare and despair.”
The most difficult time: “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” says Aniston, of a period 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. 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. I have zero regrets. I actually feel a little relief now because there is no more, ‘Can I? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.’ I don’t have to think about that anymore.”
The narratives around her: Adding to the personal pain of what she went through was the “narrative that I was just selfish,” she says. “I just cared about my career. And God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child. 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.”
Whether she would ever get married again: “Never say never, but I don’t have any interest. I’d love a relationship. Who knows? There are moments I want to just crawl up in a ball and say, ‘I need support.’ It would be wonderful to come home and fall into somebody’s arms and say, ‘That was a tough day.’”
Enlightenment: “I feel like I’m coming through a period that was challenging and coming back into the light. I have had to do personal work that was long overdue, parts of me that hadn’t healed from the time I was a little kid. I’m a very independent person. Intimacy has always been a little here,” she extends her hand an arm’s length in front of her. “I’ve realized you will always be working on stuff. I am a constant work in progress. Thank God. How uninteresting would life be if we all achieved enlightenment and that was it? I didn’t want to partner with someone until some of that work was done. It wouldn’t be fair. I don’t want to move into a house when there are no walls.”
Her IVF story: “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.”
Her IVF comments are new – while she’s obliquely referenced her fertility struggles in the past, she’s never come out and said all of this before. I feel really sorry for her, and I appreciate her message to younger women to freeze their eggs. Mindy Kaling says that a lot too, that if you have the resources when you’re younger, you should freeze your eggs.
She’s right about social media and growing up without social media. My teenage years were downright blissful compared to what the youths go through these days. She’s also sort of right about the lack of “glamour” nowadays because of social media and internet culture. Although I would argue that there are still movie stars, there just isn’t the “movie star culture” like there was circa 1990-2008.
Cover & IG courtesy of Allure.
OMG! Such bad photo shopping. She looks awful! It doesn’t even look like her.
She looks like the memes that compare her to Iggy Pop. They did her dirty.
But she does resemble Iggy even without photoshop in candids, She’s manly
Why is it a bad thing to look manly and like Iggy Pop? He’s sexy? Women don’t need to look dainty and girly and feminine?
My point is that they made her look more like Iggy Pop and less like Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer should look like Jennifer. This leans into that meme, for better or worse.
I still don’t think it’s a bad thing? Looking like rock stars is fun and camp. Like Tilda Swinton and David Bowie. And it’s kind of more fun that it leans into a meme. I’m not a huge J Aniston fan but this makes me like her more.
I didn’t recognize her at all on the cover. And if she’s promoting a hair care brand, why the super long hair full of split ends?
75% of that long mane isn’t hers!
I don’t think it’s all photoshopped. She has some work on her lips that make them look different.
She does often look awful in real life though with all the fillers she has had, she can’t even move her mouth in interviews.
You’ve said that repeatedly. I saw her on the street in Santa Monica and she’s actually very striking. The photos are terrible though.
You sound like a hater. What has Jennifer ever done to you?
Nope Kara. I have seen her in real life and she is beautiful.
It stinks that they made her look like that and stuck that horrific bikini top on her. I don’t get the extensions/wig either. It’s hideous. They did her wrong.
She doesn’t look much better in person. She’s puffy in the face
Do you actually see her in real life?
The photos are truly awful. Plus, she could, you know, keep her clothes on. Her body is perfect, but I’m kind of tired of seeing it. Nudity doesn’t always equal sexy. I would have gone a different route
I don’t think she looks awful but she sure doesn’t look like her. I HATE IT WHEN EDITORS DO THIS. get rid of wrinkles, or a stray piece of hair, or a blemish…but DO NOT MAKE THE PERSON LOOK LIKE “SOMEONE WHO LOOKS SO-AND-SO”.
that being said, I hope every person who ever gave her sh*t about “lying” when she said she wanted a baby, and that she was only saying that to placate her fans, and that she was only saying it because it was part of her “brand” or whatever….I hope you all feel terrible about the smack you talked. so many people said EXACTLY this…that maybe she WAS trying and DID want a baby but couldn’t have one and how painful it might be for her.
Nah, let’s leave the wrinkles so we can see what real human women look like.
you know what Lucy?…you are absolutely correct.
I just meant that making someone into someone who kindasortamaybe looks like the celeb they are is NOT what photoshop is for.
Exactly, I’m shocked she waited so long to tell this story because of how much heat she got for being so “selfish” and not having kids. I’m glad she never had kids with Brad, and I have no doubt he was an abusive drunk with her as well and that’s probably why she wasn’t in a rush. My heart breaks for her knowing she tried, but I’m glad she’s at peace with it now.
@WhatWhat- whoa! Why the hostility?? Unless you know for a fact that one or more of the commentors HERE have ridiculed Aniston or accused her of lying about wanting a baby, your combative tone AND use of the 2nd person is really unnecessary.
It just feels like you’re yelling at and accusing US specifically.
@Annalise:
“Unless you know for a fact that one or more of the commentors HERE have ridiculed Aniston or accused her of lying about wanting a baby, your combative tone AND use of the 2nd person is really unnecessary.”
How long have you been on this site? I ask not for snark, but for real…I’ve been a reader and a poster her for years, and yes, I can say with certainty that one or more of the commentors HERE have ridiculed her and accused her of lying about wanting a baby. THEY’RE DOING IT ON THIS THREAD.
a combative tone is what I wanted to use.
don’t “tone police” me.
and if you feel accused, maybe ask yourself why. if you never ridiculed her or accused her of lying, then I’m not talking about you. Just like when POC talk about racism among white people, I don’t get upset because I KNOW there is racism and I’m not racist so I know they’re not talking about me. people tell on themselves all the time.
@whatwhat @annalise I’ve been here since 2010 and she ABSOLUTELY has been dragged for years about ‘lying’, sucking up to the Minivan brigade, mocking her and more. I’m sure there are still people here, posting or lurking, who participated.
To me, she looks beautiful in this shoot. She has aged well. The styling isn’t great, but she is.
IMHO, she has always been beautiful. She was a huge star but she was never “perfect looking”, and it made her different, even more lovely. She was the girl next door, and her type of beauty made her special. She has a wonderful broad face and has taken excellent care of herself.
C’mon now lets not rewrite history…..its only been 2 decades.
She was never a “huge star.” She was one of six equal members of an ensemble cast. But because of her association with a then “huge star” she was hyped up the wazoo.
And, no. We dont really know what she looks like today because she’s only seen rarely these days; in print; and photoshopped up the wazoo.
She was part of an ensemble cast on a huge show. I didn’t even watch Friends, but she was on tons of magazine covers for years. People loved her.
My issue is that we are hard on women in the entertainment business, even though we say we are feminist. I grew up in Los Angeles around women like her. It is brutal and one of the reasons why I left Los Angeles. Aging isn’t allowed, and they force procedures on themselves to keep us buying.
She is marketed and manipulated in pictures, but she seems like a real person to me. We attach our insecurities to people like her. It’s just weird to me that we brutalize her looks.
We are hypocrites.
The Allure online pics are stunning, though the cover sucks.
I agree! She looks fantastic.
Good for her.
Also, I too wanted a child, and I’m so grateful that even though I never had one, I’ve had the best pets ever. ❤️
Her plastic surgery on her face (or photoshop, I don’t know) makes her look like she’s trying to morph into an Olsen twin.
the olsens must be the go-to for the photoshoppers.
JA doesn’t look like this IRL. but just recently (I wish I could remember who was the subject of the post) there was another post on here where a bunch of us commented on how the mag cover was so photoshopped and the person looked like an olsen twin.
Crazy! It doesn’t even look like her- they made soooo many changes, sheesh!
What in the Olsen twin did they do to her face?!
Yeah! I’ve been thinking the same thing. That top picture looks absolutely nothing like her. Horrible photo shopping. Pretty freaky looking, and not in a good way.
I am glad she said this because people have been harsh. There were times when I thought ‘Damn maybe the woman simply Cannot ‘ have children.
yeah, this exactly. so many people were cruel. I wish that she had shut that sh*t down much earlier…tell any interviewer who asks “I’m sorry, my reproductive system and what I do with it are nobody’s business but mine”.
shutting down a question like that isn’t rude…ASKING a question like that IS.
Yea I’m hoping people can treat her comments with some more grace. I’m recently diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. Yes, I waited. But from some of the comments here I guess I should just be blaming myself for not having started sooner?
FWIW egg freezing was never mentioned to me. And rather than pushing for egg freezing, I think we can simply inform women of their general fertility health by testing a woman’s AMH levels early on to get a sense of overall egg count. Not saying egg freezing is bad- but this is a less invasive first step to be informed of your options earlier on.
No blaming yourself! I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
I question if she ever wanted children. And before everyone piles on me at once, she did say she and Brad were going to start a family once “Friends” wrapped. Then as soon as the series ended, she signed up to do four movies back to back. You don’t do that if you’re planning to get pregnant.
If she didn’t want kids, fine. That’s her business and nobody else’s. If that was the case, I’d respect her more for actually saying so and telling everyone else to butt out. But that wouldn’t have fit the narrative of the innocent jilted woman betrayed by her cheating husband and his devious mistress that the tabloids trotted out on a weekly basis for umpteen years.
I agree completely with what you said. Her actions of signing up for multiple films was always sketchy to me. I don’t think she needs to tell anyone what she chooses to do with her womb but she definitely capitalised off of being the victim and still does.
Why don’t you understand that actors sign up for movies all the time. Doesn’t mean that they were going to film them all back to back. Or that she couldn’t delay/or dropped out of the movie if she fell pregnant.
And why are you saying if she didn’t want kids…. SHE DID, SHE TRIED, SHE COULDN’T
How was she not told to freeze her eggs? I was aware of this option back in 2005 and I didn’t have her resources.
What kind of backwater doctors did she have then? I call shenanigans.
Agreed. My gyno started talking to me about that in my early 30s.
I think she means no one emphasized to her, but her BFF Courtney also spoke about her struggles so I’m sure many options where discussed amongst the Friends ladies.
I think its kind of gross to call shenanigans when someone is talking about their fertility struggles.
Maybe she means no one mentioned it to her until it was too late, maybe she means that it wasn’t emphasized to her and it didn’t occur to her that she might have issues conceiving until it was too late, or the divorce meant that she delayed trying to get pregnant again until it was too late and she should have frozen her eggs earlier, etc.
I think it’s not only gross but hubristic to tell someone they’re gross for commenting on something she knows nothing about & then proceed to show the same level of knowing nothing about said subject.
Exactly – we don’t know the full situation, there were likely a lot of factors involved, and unfortunately the timing didn’t work for her.
@Kingston – lol, okay. That’s not what I said, but whatever.
@Kingston, that person didn’t just “comment”, they called Aniston a liar. meaning that she’s lying about her fertility struggle. that IS gross, and presumptuous.
the follow up comment from Becks didn’t make a declarative statement, just offered some possibilities as to explanation.
I completely agree, Becks. Attacking people for how they express their experience with fertility is out of line. Can we stop hyper-critiquing women for every little thing?
We ended up having 3 children by IVF starting in the 2000s and 2010s. At our start freezing unfertilized eggs wasn’t really on the table and there was uncertainty about their viability down the road. At that time freezing “eggs” often referred to freezing blastocysts (I guess with donor sperm) a well established practice. By our last child our practice was offering egg freezing. I wonder if her timing was a little off and if egg freezing wasn’t occurring (at least in a wide scale with reliable results) when she was young enough to have a good success rate. Having said all that my heart goes out to her. Struggling with fertility is hard enough without others calling you selfish for not wanting children.
Yes, my understanding is that egg freezing technology is relatively recent. She’s vague about when she was having the treatment and seems to be implying that it might have been during her marriage to Brad Pitt…. although she also implies that the fertility issue was due to her age so maybe it was later on. Usually if people are having egg freezing it’s more of an insurance policy for future fertility so it’s something you want to do before 30, ideally, which for Jennifer would have been late 90s/early 00s. I don’t think egg freezing was a realistic option then, even for celebrities.
It actually bothers me when people say “just freeze your eggs”. For the woman it’s basically like going through an IVF cycle with all the drugs and injections but not doing an embryo transfer at the end of it. Pregnancy success rates from frozen eggs are also pretty low – much higher from frozen embryos, but that requires a partner or donor sperm. So a woman wanting to freeze her eggs to use with a future partner would need to do multiple egg harvest cycles, which is not a trivial undertaking.
TrixC, yes that bothers me too. Going through the process isn’t easy. Again I did the hyper-stimulation in the early 2000s and maybe it is easier now. For me, it was an adjustment to give myself so many shots and spend so much money on medication. And then I think people overestimate the success rate. There is no guarantee that it will work years later. I’m so glad we have the option now, but worry that people think it is sure thing when it isn’t.
@Trixc, agreed!
My friend did 3 round egg collection for freezing. It was extremely hard. Her emotions were all over the place throughout the process because of the hormones she had to inject.
Such a hard thing to do, She collected 9 eggs in total, for future success rate that is, indeed, not that high.
So the “just freeze your egg” advice is not as straightforward as it seems.
Yes! Thank you! I hate it when people say “just freeze your eggs”. Unfortunately it is not like sperm.
My aunt offered to pay for me to do so a few years ago and I investigated it, but my takeaway is that it is extremely hard on your body and you have to go through several rounds to get just a few viable eggs. Also there can be issues with storing them- how long and how much money and if you move how do you ship them? etc.
I think there is nuance to this. I am a few years younger than her but I was never talked to about freezing my eggs…granted I’m not a big Hollywood star but I am educated, white collar, in a metro area with good health care. Also, when you are young and single and unsure of what you want—I was definitely there—it just wasn’t something on my radar. That being said, if someone had said something to me at that time, I probably would have poo pooed the idea. When you are young you (think you) are limitless and bulletproof.
Agree about thinking you’re limitless and bulletproof when young. It brings me back to LeAnn Rimes when she was constantly asked about children with Eddie Cibrian and I remember a specific answer of hers saying she’s young and fertile and has plenty of time. She’s 40 now and I think she has talked of fertility struggles… although we always knew Eddie got the snip but I digress!
Thanks ladies for starting this topic! Ditto! I wanted to make sure to comment on this piece as soon as I saw the quotes from Aniston re “just freeze your eggs.” It bothers me as standard advice to women bc it’s not nearly as simple as suggested, it’s expensive, and the success rates of using frozen eggs is much lower than frozen embryos. It’s such privileged advice because it’s just such a non-accessible option for so many women, I wish it wouldn’t be promoted as some sort of fertility-safeguard.
-Signed, a fellow IVFer
She’s in her 50s. Egg freezing was not a widely available option when she was in her 20s and early 30s. In those days is was still very experimental with a high failure rate.
It was a different world.
@ Duchess of Hazard…in 2005 Jennifer would have been what in her mid 30’s? She’s 2 years older than me & egg freezing is something you want to do in your twenties, ideally. It really wasn’t talking in the 90’s or early 2000’s. If it was & had I been aware of it, I would have frozen my eggs.
@Purplehazeforever – I was in the UK at the time. I know it came up around the time between 2005-2007 and it was brought up to me then. I didn’t have her resources, so it’s all news to me that the option wouldn’t have been offered to someone with her status and money.
right? multiple friends of mine did this in their earlyish 30s (I am 45) and one told me to do it too, as if I had any possible means of affording to do it.
I stupidly thought that it would be easy to get pregnant when I eventually tried/stopped taking my pill (in my late 30s), but I also always looked at it with a very passive “if it happens, then it happens” sort of mentality. I’m still not sure whether I want a baby or whether I will regret not having one in the future, but I kind of think if I truly wanted one, I would have done something to make it happen
@manda, I’m with you. I don’t think she prioritized having a baby, which is fine. It sounds to me like, probably unbeknownst to her, she was always going to have a hard time but got around to it when it was too late.
“but I also always looked at it with a very passive “if it happens, then it happens” sort of mentality.”
I have to imagine this is true of many people. Some people don’t know at 23 that they for sure want kids. And even if at 23 someone knows for sure, if they aren’t ready yet, they won’t know if fertility is going to be an issue for them.
It’s not like freezing eggs is so easy and accessible that every 23 year old is going to consider it “just in case”. I barely had rent money at 23. And by the time they realize that fertility is an issue for them, it may be too late for that option.
Maybe I had a good doctor she did tell me and I am two years older. Once I hit 28 my doctors were telling me if I can afford to freeze them do it. I think it’s more of a case of people hearing what they want to hear. My doctor even said do not look at celebrities having babies in their late 40’s she said I’d bet my life most if not all use egg donors.
I am 40 and freezing my eggs was never once mentioned to me as something to think about or consider, ever.
Exactly @Becks1 – me too. It was never mentioned to me as a thing that even existed. I had no clue, and no doctor ever educated me about the possibility. So the presumptions people are making on this thread are gross
I’m 42 and never had anyone mention freezing my eggs. It has become much more common among my professional peers in the last 5 years or so. It is also quite costly, along with IVF.
I was able to get pregnant at 35 without issue, but had friends who struggled with fertility in their 20’s. It’s really hard to know if you’re going to struggle with fertility issues.
I’m just a few years younger than Aniston and no one ever mentioned it to me. I never even knew it was a thing until about ten years ago. So you may have known, but many of us did not.
Sorry but yeah. Freezing your eggs is not new or hidden information. What she really meant was “I wish I had frozen my eggs.” She had all the wealth and access to services to do this.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) classified egg freezing as an experimental procedure until 2012, when the evidence finally became positive enough for the ASRM to change its classification. 10 years ago, she was 43 years of age, well beyond the age when doctors would recommend she freeze her eggs and thaw them with good effect. So, no, not shenanigans, I think. Just a sad fact of history that the reproductive technology wasn’t where it needed to be when she was of the age to need it.
I’m in my 40s now and was never told about it till I was almost 40. Freezing your eggs is still new.
While it’s great egg freezing can be an option, it’s also no guarantee of anything
I don’t like the photoshopping in the first picture in this post, but Allure has some behind the scenes videos posted and she looks really good in those videos – I think she’s toned down some of the work she was having done, she looks a lot better than she did during the Friends reunion.
Her comments about IVF were really sad to read. I remember when she and Brad broke up, there was SUCH a narrative about how it was bc he wanted kids and she refused to put her career on hold to have a baby, a narrative which was not helped by his having a baby with Angelina in 2006. Now here she does not say when she tried IVF, if it was during Friends, if it was after, if she was trying as a single woman, if it was with Brad, or with Justin, etc. But it seems to me like it was during her marriage with Brad, and then maybe she tried again afterwards? Because she makes the comment about how it was absolute lies about the reason her marriage ended (i.e. it was not bc she didn’t want kids and Brad did.)
It’s hard enough to go through IVF and deal with infertility as a ‘regular” person, I can’t imagine how much harder it is when you’re famous and it feels like everyone is on womb watch.
I saw the video too, she does look good, this is weird photoshop in that cover photo. I don’t know why magazines insist on doing that.
I felt sad for her reading that too. She’s spent so many years with tabloid scrutiny of her womb, I can’t imagine. Given that she mentioned the narrative of Brad leaving her because she wouldn’t have kids, I’m inclined to think they were certainly trying, if not doing IVF then. To then have him then leave her, almost immediately get pregnant with his new partner, make being a dad his whole public persona, and let the public narrative be that Jen wouldn’t give him kids…I can’t imagine how painful that all was for her. Plus he did that “domestic bliss” photo shoot with Angelina and a bunch of kids shortly after their split.
And people raked her over the coals for YEARS for daring to say he was missing a sensitivity chip.
I am angry at him thinking about just how he treated her, and then add the abuse and terror and awfulness he inflicted on Angelina and the kids, and continues to, it’s shocking. He is truly a terrible person.
“And people raked her over the coals for YEARS for daring to say he was missing a sensitivity chip.”
yeah, this is another thing (along with her lying about wanting a baby) that people gave her so much sh*t for. now that we all know the real Bradley Pitt, I hope all those folks feel a little remorse.
I’m not a fan and not not a fan. I did go watch the video. Her body looks fantastic for a woman of any age in it — and not at all like the body in the still photos. She isn’t rail thin and she isn’t anything close to cut like that in the video, and then they went and took literally (and unnecessary) inches off of her. I hate when women’s magazines do that (and when famous women who have final say allow it) because it’s so anti-woman. Otherwise I’m slightly older than her and no one ever mentioned freezing my eggs to me.
I’ve always thought brads people started the rumor that he left her over kids because it excused the fact that he had an affair in his wife and then dumped her for a – at the time- wild and gorgeous co star.
That’s 2 women smeared with a PR machine that’s secretive and hard to call out. He is a POS.
I’d be willing to bet cold hard cash it came from his team. He’s only out for himself and his own image, of course he’d throw her under the bus that way to justify leaving “America’s sweetheart”.
“Compare and despair” is such an apt description of teenage girldom. Add social media to it, and you have this alarming uptick in suicide and mental illness among young girls.
Beyond that, she fed into the baby narrative and is now presenting it as something done to her. I don’t feel for her on that, only that, if she was going through IVF and couldn’t conceive, I am truly sorry for her.
I think she only “fed into the baby narrative” because she didn’t come out and tell people to mind their own business. I felt – and still do feel – that she actually dealt with the breakdown of her marriage in a really classy way; she basically went “no comment” on it and just lived her best life. And that must have been very hard because in addition to the heartbreak of the end of the relationship, she then had to watch her ex-husband conduct a really public love affair and immediately create a new family. If they’d been trying IVF and if she’d gotten pregnant and had miscarriages (I read on another website that there were rumours of that when she was married) that must have really rubbed salt in the wound.
FWIW, I don’t think she was behind many of those tabloid stories about “is she pregnant?” or whatever, either – most of that “reporting” is pure fantasy and I don’t believe writers for US and the like have a lot of sources, particularly amongst A-list celebrities – I think they just make stories up.
I doubt she was behind most of them either. There was a cycle seemingly every other week. Jen is trying, Jen is expecting, miracle twins for Jen. It was a go to when they needed a story. Just like Brad and Angie expecting/adopted/marrying/breaking up. Easy to write and always sells.
Oh give me a break she doesn’t like social media but she’s out there on Instagram liking hate pages about Amber Heard, Meghan Markle and Angelina Jolie. She’s also out there liking stories about Brad Pitt the abuser. I wonder why people don’t see right through her.
WTF!?? Really, her FINSTA has been exposed or what?
Not a fake page she uses her real and verified page to like hate posts about the women I mentioned and glowing posts about Brad Pitt
How can you hate posts on Instagram? I’m on Instagram & you can really only hit the like button…is she commenting? I do know she follows Pitt & Depp, is that what you mean?
@purplehazeforever, she meant Aniston liking the “hate posts” people create for those celebrities.
This is news to me, although I always felt like she was closer to her Morning Show character than her America’s Sweetheart image.
Re: infertility revelations though, I do feel for her and wished she would shut it down earlier. There was a sense that she was courting the attention and fueling the Jen vs Angie stories at the time, but I’ve come to realize that being a huge celebrity doesn’t necessarily mean you have the power to sway coverage. And she was likely in the active process of trying, so she probably just wanted to shut it down once and for all when it did happen.
Could you give examples? This is super disturbing.
I find it weird that people monitor instagram activity, especially if you don’t like the person.
And I bet it’s not even true. I follow her on insta and I’ve never seen her like anything disparaging anyone. Her haters always say she’s trashing Angelina, but they can never offer any proof.
Sounds like you’re just blatantly making things up. Where is the proof that she has actually said or done those things, that disparage others like AH and MM?
I always thought that she just didn’t want children, which is a fine choice to make, but allowed all the stories bout her baby wishes and pregnancy rumors because you aren’t ‘allowed’ to be America’s Sweetheart and not love kids.
I absolutely cannot imagine how painful it was for her to privately struggle with failed IVF when almost every month her face was on a weekly magazine cover with the headline PREGNANT? or TWINS ON THE WAY or SECRET BABY SURPRISE and some false tabloid shenanigans. That’s just ….awful.
Before internet, it was the magazines that made girls feel insecure. I remember feeling that myself and my mother telling me not to be influenced by them.
I was though to the point of being very affected by it, and I was really thin back then.
I also distinctly remember her being one of those people who seemed to follow the ‘thin as can be trend’ in the 90s that created this environment. Don’t blame her for that, as that was the expectation then and she probably struggled herself.
However, it seems like she had her body photoshopped, which would not be in any way helpful if you don’t want girls to feel insecure about their body in the year 2022…
@Flowerlake, good point about the thinness. If you’re -very- thin and struggling to conceive, one of the first things your gynecologist is going to do is advise you to put on weight. Then, if you don’t conceive within a year with all sorts of tweaks, they look further. Ivf is rough!
As to internet, it’s not all as negative as JA is making it out to be. Nuance is a beautiful thing: the elderly who were able to keep in contact with the loved ones via internet during COVID lockdowns did better. Same with my kids and their friends. It depends on how you’re using it.
Agreed. Partly thanks to the internet, you can see people of more shapes and sizes.
I remember articles in magazines about what to do when you’re naturally fat and the accompanying pictures would be of thin models positioned so that a tiny roll formed on their stomach.
How harmful to make it seem like even they were fat to normal women!
Exactly. It’s ironic and sad to make the “compare and despair” comment and have procedures done on your face and much photoshopping on your pictures.
All three of the women on Friends got thinner and thinner as the seasons went on. Courtney was always tiny but there’s such a notable difference between Jennifer in the first four or five seasons and the last few. Unlike the men, who got heavier (or fluctuated, in Matthew Perry’s case, and now we know why).
I remember at the time thinking it was really sad that even Jennifer was under that kind of pressure, despite earning $250,000 an episode on one of the most popular shows on TV, being married to Brad Pitt, and all her other success. I guess this story, and all the stuff that Matthew Perry has written about recently in his autobiography, is a reminder that we never really know what goes on behind closed doors.
Good point.
I don’t remember it of Lisa Kudrow, but I think there were even articles about how the other two were supposedly competing in thinness.
The 90s were horrible for this and that was before internet had the significant influence it had then.
It was magazines back then.
By the way, it has been very long since I have bought any magazines that are ‘for women’, because it is often about pushing women down under that guise.
I prefer National Geographic magazine and the like any day.
“There are no more movie stars.” Take that, Brad.
There are movie stars. I don’t understand the glory days talk. Those days were filled with drugs, sexual assault, the good-old boys club. I guess we all over-romanticize times gone by but I think there is something so immature and whiny about pretending that Hollywood used to be better. It feels more like she doesn’t understand the current Hollywood, and I have no doubt that she’s edged out a bit as a middle-aged woman. But let’s stop this bs about times gone by.
The difference is that there wasn’t social media (or paparazzi, at least until the 1960s) so it was easier to manage a star’s image. Not to mention, the studios had clean-up guys like Eddie Mannix so the horror stories were hushed up and sometimes literally buried.
I think there were movie stars whose names I actually knew.
There are movie stars now, but you have to refresh my memory as to what their names are or how big their star power actually is. I did not have this problem with knowing who Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts are/were, and how massive their star power was. There is a difference in how I perceive Tom Criuise vs Tom Holland, even though they both star in movies.
If I’m asking myself why Kristen Stewart is wearing booty shorts to the Oscars, then I don’t think Aniston is totally off the mark with her comment.
I like Tom Holland a lot more than Tom Cruise, but I agree with you.
Maybe it’s partly because movies stars are now competing with all kinds of other celebrities.
A reality show person with 100 million followers has more influence/visibility in some ways than a movie star with 10% of that. In a way, they’re even competing with aspiring influencers that could be our neighbors for attention. Before that competition didn’t exist.
I don’t understand why women have to justify not having children. It’s so bizarre to me.
A lot of people say I might change my mind but I don’t think I will. I’m terrified that my kid will have my genetics and I don’t want to put them through that
Unfortunately, this has always been part of her shtick. If she really did struggle with IVF and wants to share here story with other women, that’s fully her business and her right. But she spent a decade using the “maybe I’ll have a baby soon” routine as PR, keeping us interested in her love life and her uterus. I don’t have a problem with JA, but her wounded bird routine bugged me. I thought she was over it and reinventing herself as an actress who will play the successful woman going forward. She can do that and be naked on magazine covers and talk about her uterus. That’s all fine, but I kinda feel like it’s her way of continuing to deflect from the truth that she just never wanted kids.
WTH. It wasn’t her stick. It was the stick from the tabloids. Why don’t you blame the gossip industry instead of the woman who wanted a child, tried and couldn’t.
I’m going to second notok’s WTH.
“she spent a decade using the “maybe I’ll have a baby soon” routine as PR,”
Or maybe she didn’t know when/if she was having a baby because no woman knows IF it will happen, even if they are trying.
It is just so cynical and judgemental to call it PR and “shtick”.
“If she really did struggle with IVF and wants to share here story with other women, that’s fully her business and her right.”
then why are you and so many others talking so much crap about it?
and the “maybe I’ll have a baby soon” comments were ALWAYS in response to being ASKED. and she was always asked because of the narrative about her marriage dissolving because she “didn’t want” to give her husband a kid. should she have shut it down earlier? perhaps…but that’s kind of victim blaming. maybe the interviewers shouldn’t have been asking in the first place.
No woman is going to go through the agony and stress of IVF if they don’t actually want children. What a ridiculous comment.
Huge hugs to a fellow IVF warrior. That shit is not easy, and I can’t imagine how painful it must’ve been for her to endure that while the tabloids were relentlessly questioning whether she was pregnant every month.
Holly Molly. I am learning just now that Jen An had been madly struggling to become a mother. I was one of those who were convinced that she was selfishly denying her husband a family, hence Angelina.
Her silence regarding the matter was misleading. She deprived herself of our collective prayers. I don’t know what to say.
I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but no one going through fertility treatment should be obligated to disclose that to other people. I’ve been through IVF (successfully in the end) and chose not to tell anyone other than immediate family, mostly because it would have been too painful having people on bump watch and expecting an announcement, and then pitying me each time it failed. I can only imagine that feeling would be amplified 1000 times in the case of a Hollywood celebrity.
Didn’t the narrative about “Brad wanted children but Jen didn”t” stem from an interview he did after their split where he was asked if he wanted children and he got really emotional and said he did? It puts quite a different lens on it if he was actually reflecting on their unsuccessful struggles with IVF.
We don’t even know when she supposedly went through IVF, maybe it was when she was “married” to Justin?
She just has nothing else to talk about besides a marriage that ended 20 years ago & babies she didn’t have & her hair, she’s dull
“she’s dull”
and yet you’ve commented on this story several times. usually, when I find someone “dull”, I scroll right past posts about them.
The JA doesn’t want kids narrative started before their split, when she was still on Friends. There was lots of misogynistic fretting in the gossip columns about how Pitt wanted babies, and her focus on her career was getting in the way (smdh). Lots of stories especially leading up to the 10th/final season of Friends about how Pitt was upset with her for agreeing to do it because he wanted those babies (and lots of ugly innuendo that he’d hooked up with Jolie because she was so much more baby oriented than JA was, so it was her own fault for focusing on her career over babies).
Er, selfishly denying her husband a family?
I hated that narrative (she wouldn’t give Brad a kid)!and didn’t believe it. Before their split Brad did an interview with his Oceans costars. When it was asked what they looked for in the future Brad said kids I’m thinking about kids and teared up. Infertility is a very personal thing for lot of people and some I’ve suspected (jlo, Hilarie swank offhand) never mentioned any problems beforehand although I suspect they did. Failing to get pregnant can definitely strain a relationship especially with the strong desire of Brad’s and I believe he fell in love with little Maddox first and the rest is history. Many women have ovarian insufficiency in their thirties and at the time she was 36. She has come out through the 17 years saying that she did want kids and has never said she didn’t. All those tabloid covers zeroing in on her stomach must have been wrenching.
I didn’t believe that narrative either. Before their split there were stories about at least one miscarriage. Right before that teary eyed interview Brad gave. It matches her later comment that Brad was missing a sensitivity chip. I’m not in any camp, I don’t hate her or love her, I can skip articles about her or read them. My only judgment is about her ex, from the jump I always thought Pitt was overrated.
“Her silence regarding the matter was misleading.”
No, her silence was the basic human right to keep reproductive matters private. The people who were misleading were the ones sharing and supporting the claim that she refused to have children. Don’t try to pass bad acts onto the person who was the victim of them.
I would have been very tempted to set the record straight and spill it out, especially if the negative assumptions about me and overinterpretations regarding my intentions had gone so out of proportion, that I was maligned and portrayed in a public manner that is adversarial to who I am. But that’s me, which makes me wonder why Aniston speaks her truth now, 15-20 years later. Confusing.
You might have been tempted, but you don’t know what she has been through. Perhaps she didn’t want to tell strangers about the pain of failed attempts, miscarriages, etc. Maybe she has found a way to handle her pain and grief that allows her to talk about it not.
“Her silence regarding the matter was misleading. She deprived herself of our collective prayers.”
I…don’t know what to say. This is just weird.
She had every right to protect her privacy, as we all do. I was trying to figure out what it would have felt like for her, had the public been aware of her predicament: perhaps the outpoor of support and compassion would have made the situation more bearable, more comfortable, even if it wouldn’t have changed the outcome? Fertility struggles can be a lonely road, and every woman committed to that path can use emotional support and consolation, I guess.
I lean toward the group saying she took advantage of the “When will she have kids?” narrative, for her own publicity. Back in “Friends” heyday, her publicist Christopher Huvane had a LOT of pull with the magazines, and could dictate what the narrative was surrounding Anniston. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel sorry for her, for not having the biological kids that she wanted, because I do, but that is a different subject from whether I have sympathy for how the magazine articles affected her — and that is on her and her publicist.
Also, I know many (most?) people want kids that are genetically *theirs* for some reason, but just because you didn’t freeze your eggs doesn’t mean you couldn’t have kids some other way (donor eggs, adoption, etc.). Not every woman has that option of course, because it is expensive and there are administrative obstacles to get through. But someone with Anniston’s resources could have done so, if she wanted kids (and not *just* her own genetic offspring). To me children are more than your own eggs, but that’s just imho.
Look maybe she didn’t want kids at one point did at one point but Aniston has gotten enough sympathy and money from being a victim or childless for years. I’m tired. Now she ring s it up for attention. She could have adopted but chose not to.
She has been saying for years she chose her career when with Pitt so I don’t get the uproar.
No
Movie stars is incorrect snd stop blaming social media when she is on it constantly. Hypocrisy
I really hate when people say “They could have adopted” about people with fertility struggles. I think adoption is great. My niece and nephew were adopted from foster care, but adoption is not for everyone.
People who say “just adopt” usually have no idea what adoption actually entails. And furthermore, it is not the moral obligation of folks experiencing infertility – what don’t YOU just adopt? Ugh.
I personally haven’t adopted kids because I didn’t want kids. Any kids. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people don’t adopt because it’s expensive and there are a lot of hoops to go through. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But with celebrities, they have the means to adopt if they choose to, so it baffles me that they don’t consider adoption in the same light as their own, precious, genetic offspring. If I had the means and I actually wanted kids, adoption would be my FIRST choice, regardless of my biological ability to birth “my own” kids.
Adoption isn’t for everyone. Having children isn’t for everyone either, even if they think it is frankly. People can do whatever they want and it’s not like I pry into it if I see it in real life but I’m always skeptical of people who desperately want children and yet absolutely refuse to adopt.
I think if Aniston really wanted a kid she would have one by now and that’s really all there is to it that is my business.
It’s also possible that she didn’t want to be a single mom. Maybe she wanted kids with her husband but not by herself. Is that an acceptable explanation for people?
people have blamed her for years for not having kids, or using her uterus, or whatever. Now she’s saying she tried to get pregnant and couldn’t and people are still blaming her bc she should have adopted or done XYZ
Someone’s path to being a parent isn’t the same as anyone else’s.
I hate hearing about freezing your eggs because I can’t afford it and would probably do it otherwise.
It’s pretty amazing how either Aniston or Angelina became targets but the guy in the middle, who was the cheater if there was overlap, got away with such little criticism.
Not surprising at all. When it comes to public figures and relationships women are the ones blamed and hated.
I don’t think he’s the brightest bulb, but he is VERY good at letting everyone around him take the hits, especially women, while maintaining his golden boy persona. It’s so very gross, and I hope more and more people are waking up to it.
I agree. I don’t think he’s all that smart either, although I’m not sure he’s completely dumb – I think he’s probably reasonably intelligent but *believes* he’s much cleverer and more talented and creative than he actually is. And because he was beautiful and then because he’s been super-famous and very rich for 30-odd years, he’s surrounded by people who don’t disabuse him of his self-belief.
And the narrative was absolutely one of Jennifer vs Angelina, even though – even if there was an overlap between the beginning of one relationship and the start of the next – the two women never really did compete with one another. Jennifer divorced Brad and then barely spoke about him for years; Angelina was busy with her kids; and they both had careers they went all-in on. And somehow Brad did skate on the whole thing, you’re right.
What kind of man publicly humiliates his ex-wife that way and then barely lifts a finger when the mother of his children is demonized by the press as an evil homewrecker? Oh wait, an abusive POS. That’s who.
I worry a little bit about the Freeze your eggs narrative. In the one hand… It’s great and opens up options! But I feel like clinics are not doing enough education in what this will eventually mean. Freezing your eggs is committing to ivf. The story should be freeze you eggs and start saving up the cash. And creating embryos from eggs frozen when you were younger is still no guarantee.
It wasn’t really until vitrification that freezing oocytes became more of a thing. The success rates with a vitrified blast vs 2pn slow freeze embryos are significant.
I also think people should be aware of a) the increased cancer risks from the stim drugs and b) issues with staying pregnant after 40 especially are not just limited to getting a fertilized egg in the right place.
I work in fertility adjacent field, and it can be heartbreaking to see women go through it several times without success.
We can’t have it all sometimes we make choices. That’s a good thing to come to terms with as well. I say this as a woman in her 50s whose life choices led to be child free. I’m good with it. But I was surprised to mourn a bit in my 40s when I realized I wasn’t going to be there. There are hidden narratives in your brain you have to root out.
I’m really glad the media wasn’t specifically calling me selfish when I struggled with it.
This. Well said.
I don’t understand why she’s blaming others for not telling her to freeze her eggs. I mean did she herself not know about this? This technology was around when she was going through IVF. Did her husband at the time not know about egg freezing as a choice either? Also, could magazines please stop with the horrible photoshop and filtering. She looks like a cartoon. What is the point?
Because she’s got to blame someone, she’s the eternal victim.
She has access to the best doctor’s & resources.
You’d probably freeze your eggs in your 20’s. She probably didn’t know about it then or was told about it by a doctor. No doctor advised me to freeze my eggs when I was younger.
I assumed her eggs were viable since she was doing IVF? I thought she meant when she was married and trying to get pregnant that no one mentioned “hey you should freeze some of your eggs now just in case”. Maybe I misunderstood.
“Then the pandemic hit and we didn’t launch. So I was just stuck with being on Instagram. It doesn’t come naturally.”
How is she stuck being on Instagram lol. Newsflash to her but she doesn’t have to be on social media at all…. she’s just always a complainer.
Good lord Kara, what did Jennifer Aniston ever do to you?
Seriously. I hate being on social media too but I have to for work. I get what Jen is saying and also, fwiw, she’s very friendly and kind at work, per a friend who worked on a film with her. That is kind of rare.
The hate for her is just so weird.
I don’t get it either. Transphobic insults and body shaming, horrible judgment regarding her reproductive choices and pain. What is it about her that brings out this vitriol? She’s benign?
Agreed mewow and Becks1.
What’s with Kara and the comments? I don’t get it. JAniston is one of the lesser problematic celebrities. She’s allow to like/not like social media. Sheesh
@Kara: Instagram does NOT come naturally to someone who was born in 1969 and who was already almost 30 years old when the Internet hit the planet. Jennifer Aniston is 53 and isn’t a child of the digital age. Perhaps a little more understanding and sympathy from your end, would tell you where she’s coming from.
Girl! Chill TF out. I saw the earlier comments you made it’s like you have some quota to meet for bad comments about Jennifer Aniston. Get some therapy.
I’m always puzzled by the ivf/no adoption route. Is the idea that if you can’t carry a child that you take that as a sign that kids should not be part of your future? She is wealthy, so surrogacy and adoption were easily available. I’m not criticizing – it’s an intensely personal decision and I absolutely think that each person is entitled to their choices. I’m just wondering if that’s a common line in the sand.
A friend of mine in college talked me out donating my eggs for research in college because I would have been shot up with fertility drugs. I remembered that after I didn’t get pregnant in my thirties & said well, it’s not meant to be. I would have adopted & still will but I have to be financially able to. Sometimes life throws you curve balls & you just have to roll with them.
Some people want to carry their own kids or want biological kids. My sister couldn’t have kids, and she and her husband adopted from foster care, but her best friend who also had fertility struggles didn’t want to go that route. Adoption comes with its own struggles.
Surrogacy and adoption are *not* “easily available, nor should they be taken lightly as a family building option for anyone, wealthy or not.
What she went through in the press is genuinely heartbreaking in light of the fact that she really was trying to conceive. I always assumed she didn’t want kids but was afraid to say so because she feared it would make her unlikable or damage her brand. That said, she really should have shut the conversation down like Clooney did years ago. That famous publicist of hers did her dirty.
How TF are we still discussing JA’s uterus? Also that picture. UGH! It’s not just the insane photoshop. She’s beyond this. She’s a badass on the Morning Show. She’s no longer a romcom queen who needs to remind the world how youthful and desirable she still is. Why to any of this??
To be fair, she decided to finally share this part of her uterine saga herself.
This cover and piece made me sad in so many ways. I also took the IVF journey and was incredibly lucky that it worked. I know so many women who it didn’t work for and it is just so, so hard. I have three thoughts after seeing/reading this:
– There are other ways to bring children into your life. They don’t have to be biological. It’s not easy to adopt as a single mom but it is possible.
– Egg freezing doesn’t always work. It’s expensive and hard to go thru and I worry it gets some women a false sense of comfort that those eggs will develop into a viable baby in your 40s or 50s. It’s not always the case and there’s a real risk of relying on them.
– I wish women didn’t have to strip down in bikinis etc to be heard. You should be able to hawk your product/service/etc without having to show so much skin. Men don’t have to do that.
Jennifer played into the baby headlines. She is represented by one of the most powerful agencies in Hollywood that have ability to shut down stories. She could have ended the speculation a long time ago. But it was part of her victim of Jolie, NOT Brad, agenda.
What do you mean she played into the baby headlines. So magazines over the world decided to carry a story about : Jen Pregnant, Jen Twins, Jen this and that. almost every week (And they did this because it sold magazines). And you blame Jennifer who was trying to have a baby and couldn’t and not the magazines who made up those stories. Do you realize how hurtful it would have been for her to see those headlines and magazines when she was actively trying to get pregnant and couldn’t…….
@Solidgold is right abt jenny having one of the most powerful agents in HW. He fought for that girl-next-door image for her. He fought for her to appear to be the *star* of Friends when it was, in fact, a six-equal-members, ensemble cast. And he succeeded wildly.
Why would he shut down the 50-zillion jen-is-pregnant stories when that served to make her seem fertile waaaay into her 40s and even after she hit her 50s. Along with the photoshopping, it made her seem forever young.
Sure it sold magazines. But it also suited her agent’s purpose and, by extension, hers.
She didn’t have to share her IVF journey with anyone until she was ready.
She is so tiresome, just be like Dolly Parson. She wanted a career, it wasn’t conducive to Motherhood so she chose not to have children. She does a million other things for the world for the good of it. Your choice. No one cares.
Now with this new narrative to pander to still pretending to want kids. Is beyond boring.
If she wanted a kid she would have one. Either by surrogate or adoption. She has the means and money for it.
I’m 51 no kids, never married, I knew it wasn’t for me so I didn’t pursue any of it. And i have no regrets. Just live your life.
“She wanted a career, it wasn’t conducive to Motherhood so she chose not to have children.”
when did Dolly say that? all I ever heard her say about that was that “she didn’t have kids because G-d didn’t mean for her to have them”…meaning, not that she CHOSE that, but it just never happened. like she has even talked about how she had names picked out. she admits that having kids would have changed her life/career, but she’s never said outright that she CHOSE not to have any.
Why bring Dolly into this?!
You just proved her point. She wanted children tried it and couldn’t. So it had nothing to with her career. She doesn’t pander or pretending to wanting kids. How do you even come up with this BS.
Just because she couldn’t get pregnant does it mean she wanted a baby by surrogate or wanted adoption. That’s not for everyone.
And good for you that you knew it wasn’t for you and didn’t pursue it. So why are you making assumptions about another woman what she wants or doesn’t want. She didn’t want a surrogate or adoption so she didn’t pursue that option.
So respect her and let her live her life without creating a narrative that isn’t hers. I am glad she has spoken out because it was just cruel and not true….. and clearly still is if your comment is to go by.
I’m kind of shocked at the reproductive judgement going on in the comments, but I guess I shouldn’t be. Ugh.
Right?! So much for women supporting women.
Would y’all think or say these things to a person you met in real life (and presumably seemed more ‘human’ to you)? I’m betting not, unless you like to lean into “I tell it like it is” as an excuse for being a rude asshole.
Women hear that they need to have a career and a relationship and be independent etc., which means we’re all striving through our most fertile years. Fertility is rarely discussed by doctors with women until it may almost be too late, and even if they did…how many 22 year olds can afford $25k to freeze eggs? FYI, it’s basically IVF without the transfer and also incurs annual storage fees. And even if you do freeze eggs, you have no idea of the quality or if they’ll make it through the thaw (often don’t.)
Infertility is devastating, regardless of if it’s your coworker or Jennifer Aniston. I’m appalled by the reactions as if she’s worthy of contempt because she wanted to become a mom. If anything, she deserves compassion for going through the horror that is IVF while under the microscope of public scrutiny.
“Infertility is devastating, regardless of if it’s your coworker or Jennifer Aniston. ”
Exactly.
I’m appalled by some of these reactions as well. Sometimes people lose their humanity when it comes to celebrities, they just don’t see them as real people.
In this age where women’s reproductive rights are being taken away and ignorant men are making policy that determines what medical care we can get when, I am astounded that people are acting like fertility is easy, or if you have money that resolves all issues, or if you don’t have a child it is because you didn’t want it “bad enough” (seriously said in comments below).
It is just so disappointing that we aren’t treating women’s fertility issues with more compassion and understanding.
This is so sad! I remember when they were still together and Brad said they could have tried when Rachel was pregnant but Jennifer was busy. That was untrue and Jennifer said they both were busy during that time. He made no genuine effort to dispell the rumors and in some ways added to it.
Yh everyone knows the person that put that narrative out in the street was her ex husband BP but Jen is a pick me.
She will never put that at his feet.
She’s a pick me and I hv no respect for her
I feel like we live in an eternal repetition. It’s all exhausting!! I wish this would all be over and Jen, Angie and the kids could live in peace, each with their own lives.
I have two friends her age whose narrative is somewhat similar. They wanted kids, but … they were in bad relationships at the time, they waited to long, etc. The thing is. .. they didn’t want them that badly. Which is fine. But don’t lament what you didn’t try really hard for. There’s nothing wrong with saying you didn’t really want them. Or you weren’t sure. Or you tried for a bit and stopped. But there are other ways of having a family other than IVF, and Aniston certainly has the money to make them happen.
If she tried IVF, I feel that’s trying pretty hard. Anyone who is spending money on that is probably trying hard to get a return on investment for it.
Well, she could have adopted. Her arch nemesis did. There’s also surrogacy. She could adopt now. Diane Keaton adopted two kids when she was 50.
She doesn’t want kids that badly, which is fine.
As some people have mentioned above, adoption isn’t a route everyone wants to take. I always see adoption mentioned as an answer, but it does seem to have its share of heartbreaks and struggles.
I also think the wording of not wanting something badly enough is strange in the modern world, and that includes wanting kids. a specific career goal, or anything else. Sometimes you have to just accept life for what it gives you. If you press too hard on something where it isn’t working out like you thought, I think life can be harder and more distressing that way or more so than it needs to be.
“I also think the wording of not wanting something badly enough is strange in the modern world, and that includes wanting kids. a specific career goal, or anything else. ”
I don’t agree. People who get what they want don’t give up. It could take years and require many changes of strategies and pivoting of plans, but they don’t give up. I had a therapist tell me that years ago. I thought at the time it was a bunch of goobledygook. It annoyed me, but I’ve witnessed it as I’ve gotten older.
41 here and because I had an abusive childhood with my mother, I didnt want to bring children into a toxic or abusive environment. Never met the right guy I would feel comfortable having kids with. Many friends has babies with bad boys because them having kids meant more to them than a stable environment for the kids. It all is about choices.
Well, that’s what the two friends said. They were in relationships with men they wouldn’t have kids with when their time to have children was narrowing. But … neither one of them left the relationship.
One met the guy at about 30. Stayed until 40. Fairly early on there were signs that he had some issues. She still had time then, but she stayed. As you wrote, it’s all about choices. It’s just a bit disingenuous when she shifts all the blame to him.
@Andrea, your comment brought tears to my eyes. Such a hard hitting truth, so close to home for me too. Jennifer had a very messy relationship with her mother. If you’ve never seen “maternal” modeled…you struggle with finding your own version of “maternal.” People are really harsh about her. Ugh.
@Bobbi I find some women at our age enter into blaming others and bitterness for their choices or for those who chose to do nothing and now are unhappy becaude that in fact was a choice as well(and I mean on a variety of things, different job, didnt move away etc). I have had to end friendships with women who became hateful and bitter because life didn’t turn out the way they wanted and they talked badly about others including their friends and me to make themselves feel better.
@Susan *Hugs* It is always reassuring to find someone else with a similar experience although I am deeply sorry you experienced that also. I felt for so long there must have been something wrong with me to not have a maternal mother, but through therapy, I realized it is her, not me at all.
People forget Jennifer had a pretty rocky relationship with her mother and may have waited until her late 30s to feel ready to have a child because of it.
What a terrible comment. You didn’t try hard enough? Who are you to make that judgement? She went through IVF, so obviously she was trying.
Hi — I did comment above about my doctor’s telling me about freezing my eggs and I’m two years older than JA. I should clarify I did ask if I should be concerned that I was not in a relationship at 28 and because I did want kids- it was important to me and I asked about it. They didn’t suggest freezing my eggs unsolicited. So the info was there if you inquired about it for sure.
Really? Because you were told that you’re assuming that she was?
See my comment below. I had the same questions as you at the docs and it was never recommended to me. Circa 2008-2013.
As recently as the late 1970’s fertility clinics at reputable hospitals would mix sperm from a known donor with an unknown donor to “boost” The known donors sperm during artificial insemination. Those docs didn’t think to tell the families that the baby might not be a result of Dad’s sperm.
One of the major issues in healthcare is that advice is inconsistent between practitioners – especially when it comes to fertility. You should listen to the podcast Race to 35 by Monica Padman and Liz Plank.
Don’t assume your story is the same as everyone else’s. You were privileged in that situation – great. Not everyone was or is.
I feel badly for her that she was struggling with that among the constant tabloid speculation. I don’t know how I feel about her personally (was she really liking Meghan and Angelina hate posts on Instagram?) but nothing but sympathy regarding the fertility issue and the “will she or won’t she?!” barrages. Fame comes with public interest but her reproductive life and choices are no one’s business.
As someone who was/is going through something similar, my advice to all of you criticizing her about her eggs, adoption, blah blah blah is to STFU.
Thank you!
YES!!! Thank you.
Why should anyone shut up? Isn’t the topic of donor eggs and adoption a relevant one? Anniston herself is saying she WISHED people had discussed other options with her, such as freezing her eggs.
Or maybe, when someone tried to bring up the topic of freezing Anniston’s eggs, someone else told them to STFU.
People should shut up because they sound stupid. And they also sound like assholes to those going through similar journeys. These commemts are so disappointing.
@Mcali Yessss!
Hypocrisy at its finest. And not to mention the forever victims and Eternal whiner. Young ladies if u ever want to follow your HW dreams please don’t listen to the likes of this woman.
I agree that these pictures are awful, but she’s never been a great beauty. She’s one of those older women that live in the gym, working out all the time. They think that if they have this perfect toned body that somehow they are still hot and better than other women their age. See JLo. But really it just makes them look masculine. And while I love Iggy Pop, I wouldn’t want to be compared to him, looks wise.
NO woman should be called selfish for not wanting/having children. It’s simply nobody else’s business. If I were her, I would not even have brought it up for privacy reasons. No one is entitled to review your life choices unless you decide to discuss them. Then everyone will. Gotta say, she’s not my favorite celebrity, but she’s been really lucky and hard-working. I’m also proud to admit I never saw ONE episode of Friends. Not one. I do think Lisa Kudrow is incredibly talented since I’ve seen her in many other things. She was the one to watch, yet she was kinda in the background.
I always assumed she probably didn’t want them after her divorce but we all media publishes BS. It doesn’t look like she tried that long and that’s her choice. Ivf is a tough process even with a couple that really wants it.
She looks good is it lighting and light shop? Sure but magazines always do it. Jen didn’t need to wait this long to say this. We all knew the she won’t have a baby so he left and cheated was a misogynistic excuse made up to “justify” in some dumb people’s minds why he cheated on her. I always appreciated that Jen never played victim status about it even though the media tried so hard to make her the victim. I can count on one hand the times she has brought him up publicly in like 17 years unlike someone like a selena gomez who brings up her more famous teen ex constantly who has been happily married for many years and dumped her years ago without any cheating.
I highly recommend the Mindy Khaling episode of Duchess Meghan’s podcast “Archetypes” to jenny. For how a busy woman in HW still manages to turn her dream of having children into reality, even as she sees her dream of married-for-love-and-with-children slip away.
Not that I dont think she listens avidly each week; perhaps after she has *liked* yet another hate tweet against M. Or Angie.
HOW did Mindy Kaling turn her dream into reality? I don’t think she’s ever really told us how — did IVF work for her or did she get pregnant by accident? I have no idea.
On the podcast, Kaling did seem to question why some successful women settle for partners whom she does not perceive as equal to the women she knows. Even she seemed a little judgy of women who choose a certain kind of partner. Everyone is judging everyone else, I guess.
In France it costs 45 euros per year.
So is Jennifer implying that she was doing IVF and all that while married to Brad? I’m just confused because the article refers to a period “several years ago” when Jennifer was trying to get pregnant. And it’s been WAAAY longer than several years since she was with Brad. Confused……
“which surely they wouldn’t have believed had she done so anyhow.”
and they don’t believe her now. because they’re cruel.
She is a millionaire. Can afford the best health care available.
No one is ever going to convince me that the option to freeze her eggs was not brought to her attention.
I’m 61 and not that educated, but freezing your eggs, IVF, adoption etc. has been discussed on tv chat show, magazine covers for years and years.
Why does she insist on her child situation is the constant topic?
She has been discussing childen/no children stuff for interviews ever since BP.
If she wants to be a Mom, take a page from Diane Keaton, Sandy Bullock, Charlize Theron all have adopted as single parents.
Adoption is not for everyone… How hard is that to understand..
And why would anyone say to her in her 20’s: Hey Jen you should freeze your eggs. What she said you don’t think about that at that time. (And for her twenties was freezing of the eggs not very successful).
She can discuss it as much as she wants. There are so many lies about her in the media in the last thirty years so if she wants to tell her IVF story she should.
Judgmental
Infertility is super hard. Not gonna hate, not even a little bit. I wish her the best and I hope her dreams come true.
“……at the same time, Meghan and Harry are not perfect angels fallen from heaven to grace us pleebs while they get paid ridiculous amounts of money just to exist.”
^THIS^ is the reason why therell ALWAYS be biases in the way different personalities with public personas are discussed on this site.
Just as how your comment shows your bias TOWARD aniston and the others you mentioned (which seemed a cover for who youre REALly defending) and, conversely, your bias AGAINST the Sussexes (otherwise, why refer to ‘perfect angels’ and why the blatant lie about them being “paid ridiculous amounts of money just to exist”…..thats straight up british shidtrag level of snark against H&M.
Sowwy……..your defence defeats its purpose.
When your snake oil products aren’t selling very well, it looks like the solution is to strip down and talk about babies….. again.
@Ann
ONYD!!!! LOL
some comments on this thread….wow. Let’s just say some people never fail to show who they are. Says more about them than JA.
And sorry for any poster here either going through struggles or having been through them. ❤️🙏
What on earth does she mean she never heard about freezing eggs???? Its bee around for the last 35-40 years. FYI she’s made to look a cross between iggy pop and Beyonce in that photo.
Yes, Jen and Justin were married.
Why on earth would anyone rag on her for saying she wishes she was told to freeze her eggs sooner?! She would have been doing Ivf in her early 30’s. It wouldn’t have been common then to freeze your eggs at 25. It still isn’t common. Bu the time she was doing ivf, she probably found out during egg retrieval that she didn’t have as many follicles as was ideal, or something. At which point she’s not going to go about freezing her eggs if she’s already getting them extracted for IVF.
I can’t stand judgment about other womens fertility choices. I waited until I was 32 to start trying to conceive. I had asked GPs and gynocologists For their advice and opinion on waiting to start trying until then because I was focussing on my career before then. Like Jennifer, No one ever told me that I should’ve frozen my eggs. I had zero issues getting pregnant – one at 32, one at 34 and each one took 1 try. i could have just as easily been in the same position as her but I wasn’t and nobody’s judging me for it bc I ended up with kids. Not because I had any control over my fertility at that age.
Why can’t we just listen to what people have gone through and take their word for it even when we don’t know all of the ins and outs and myriad of details that are surely left out of this article.
Did anyone even read the excerpts? She did NOT say she’d never heard of freezing eggs. She said she wished someone had really talked to her about it. Along the lines ‘hey, despite advancements and money, you may have trouble conceiving over 35. If you don’t want kids now why not freeze some eggs so that if and when you do you have more viable ones.’ She’s always been fit and she’s wealthy—when she thought of getting pregnant she probably didn’t think it would be so hard. She certainly had a lot of over 40+ and pregnant examples around. But that ship had sailed for her and even multiple rounds of ivf didn’t work, likely because her eggs were older and less viable. Thus her wishing she’d had some frozen.
If I were married to a douche nozzle like Brad Pitt, I probably would have delayed having kids. Based on how he choked his own son, maybe she saw something that made her hesitate about having a kid with him and then just ran out of time when she got divorced.
Okay but does no one remember her SNL appearance where she was a paparazzi harrassing SNL actors imitating actresses and yelling questions at them. One was her saying “where’s Brad” “when are you having a baby”?
She openly mocked her own difficult situation for comedy….or PR.
Or maybe she didn’t want children with Brad because of reasons she only knows. Or maybe they were trying. Or maybe they wanted to wait until after friends ended and then start a family (They had a nursery in their home and according to Jen in this interview he didn’t leave because of her not wanting children). If it’s the latter we all know what happend. He fell for someone else and left her. And when they divorced she was already around 36. So when she finally met a partner whom she wanted children with she was late 30’s or early 40’s…….. so her IVF journey began. And somebody doing a skit on a comedy show doesn’t say anything….. that was years and years before her IVF journey.