Jennifer Aniston’s reproductive choices were heavily debated in tabloids and on social media for years. People couldn’t stop talking about Aniston’s personal decision about having children, despite her long and illustrious career as an accomplished actress.
In a new interview with Allure, the 53-year-old admits that she attempted to start a family several years ago, but life had other plans.
“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” Aniston 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. 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.”
The Morning Show host revealed that it wasn’t always the pregnancy rumors that bothered her. Rather, the notion that she was “selfish” for focusing on her career and not having children irritated her.
“(People thought) 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,” she said.
The Friends star also wrote an op-ed for Huffington Post in 2016 titled, “For the Record,” where she wrote, “I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of ‘journalism,’ the ‘First Amendment’ and ‘celebrity news.’” She went on to say, “I used to tell myself that tabloids were like comic books, not to be taken seriously, just a soap opera for people to follow when they need a distraction. But I really can’t tell myself that anymore because the reality is the stalking and objectification I’ve experienced first-hand, going on decades now, reflects the warped way we calculate a woman’s worth.”
She finally decided to share her journey now, after spending “so many years protecting my story about IVF” because “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.”
She says, today, she feels the best she ever has and she’s grateful for all the lessons she’s learned over the years. “I would say my late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard s**t, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be,” she says. “That’s why I have such gratitude for all those sh***y things. Otherwise, I would’ve been stuck being this person that was so fearful, so nervous, so unsure of who they were.”
Winston also talked about whether or not she would ever get married again. She was married to Justin Theroux from 2015 to 2017 and to Brad Pitt from 2000 to 2005.
“Never say never, but I don’t have any interest,” she said. “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.’”
Miracle Edee 