Jennifer Aniston is baring it all – physically and emotionally – in a new interview with Allure, posing for a stunning shoot that sees her showing off her incredible figure in a tiny Chanel bra, while opening up about her bitter struggle to conceive children.
The 53-year-old admitted to the publication that she feels bitter regret at not making the decision to freeze her eggs when she was younger, revealing that she ‘threw everything’ at her infertility battle, including going through IVF and ‘drinking Chinese teas’ in a desperate attempt to conceive.
She also slammed speculation that her former husband Brad Pitt divorced her because she ‘wouldn’t give him a kid’, noting that the constant rumors about her relationship made her infertility battle all the more difficult.
‘I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,’ she said.
‘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.’
Jennifer Aniston is baring it all – physically and emotionally – in a new interview with Allure, posing for a stunning shoot that sees her showing off her incredible figure in a tiny Chanel bra, while opening up about her bitter struggle to conceive kids
The 53-year-old admitted to the publication that she feels bitter regret at not making the decision to freeze her eggs when she was younger, revealing that she ‘threw everything’ at her infertility battle, including going through IVF
The actress added that she wishes someone had told her to freeze her eggs when she was younger, adding that she has now come to terms with the fact that she will never conceive 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 spent ten years starring on the hit sitcom Friends, from 1994 until 2004 – admitted that she was too focused on her career to think about the fact that her future self may one day want to settle down and have children, although she hit out at the constant scrutiny she faced 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.’
The actress insisted that she has come to terms with the fact that she won’t have children, noting that she actually feels some ‘relief’ in the fact that the possibility of kids is no longer lingering over her as never-ending ‘maybe’.
Indeed, with age has come a new-found sense of confidence in herself – and the actress said she no longer cares what people think or say about her, thanks in large part to the struggles she faced during her late 30s and 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.
‘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 also opened up about the scrutiny she faced during her marriage to Brad Pitt, explaining that the ‘years of speculation’ over why she’d not had kids made her infertility struggles that much harder to deal with
‘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 added that she ‘feels the best in who she is today’, explaining that she has learned to stop saying ‘bad s*** to herself’.
Jennifer also hinted that she plans to pen a book about her lengthy infertility struggles – something that she chose to kept hidden from the world for years out a need 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 candid comments about her infertility journey come 17 years after she split from Brad, now 58, after five years of marriage – during which time she faced a barrage of rumors about why the couple had not had kids.
She described glaring spotlight of scrutiny she faced during this time – with people constantly questioning whether she was showing off a baby bump in paparazzi photos – as ‘frustrating’ and ‘maddening’, explaining that she isn’t a ‘superhuman’ who could stand that kind of commentary without feeling some level of ‘hurt’.
Jennifer’s candid comments about her infertility journey come 17 years after she split from Brad (seen together in 2001), now 58, after five years of marriage – during which time she faced a barrage of rumors about why the couple had not had kids
The Morning Show star has previously addressed the speculation, slamming it as ‘nasty’ and ‘hurtful’, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 that she had spent years taking the rumors and gossip ‘personally’.
At the time, Jennifer hinted at the fact that she had struggled with infertility – although she stopped short of opening up about her IVF journey, telling the publication: ‘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.’
During the interview, the Friends alum also spoke out about her complicated relationship with her parents. Her father, John, and her mother, Nancy, were both actors. They divorced when she was nine, which she admitted wasn’t easy for her mom.
‘I think my mom’s divorce really screwed her up,’ she said. ‘Back in that generation it wasn’t like, “Go to therapy, talk to somebody. Why don’t you start microdosing?” You’re going through life and picking up your child with tears on your face and you don’t have any help.’
Jennifer previously revealed during a chat with Sandra Bullock that she grew up ‘watching adults being unkind to each other’ in a ‘household that was destabilized and felt unsafe.’
She also told Elle that her upbringing was ‘challenging,’ and recalled coming home one day to the news that her father had suddenly moved out.
After her mom released a memoir, entitled From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir, in 1999 – in which she shared intimate details on Jennifer’s childhood and their relationship – the two became estranged for 15 years.
But now, she told Allure that she eventually ‘forgave’ both her mom, who died in May 2016, and her father.
‘It’s important,’ she said of forgiveness. ‘It’s toxic to have that resentment, that anger. I learned that by watching my mom never let go of it.
‘I remember saying, “Thank you for showing me what never to be.” So that’s what I mean about taking the darker things that happen in our lives, the not-so-happy moments, and trying to find places to honor them because of what they have given to us.’
Jennifer also addressed the changing landscape of Hollywood, saying she feels as though real ‘movie stars’ no longer exist – and suggesting that the industry doesn’t have the same kind of ‘fun’ that it once used to, noting: ‘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….’