These myths about Jennifer Aniston circulate so often, you might mistake them for truth.
It’s hard to think of an actress more universally beloved than Jennifer Aniston. She’s been an A-lister for more decades than many of her fans have been alive. With that level of fame, it’s easy to understand why so many people are curious about her private life.
Unfortunately, so much of this curiosity can often morph into unhealthy obsession. Tabloids have used Aniston as front news fodder ever since she starred on Friends — and most of the cover stories have focused on unsubstantiated rumors and prying personal questions, many of which are degrading and sexist, and nearly all of which are plainly untrue.
Does she want kids?
Is she getting back together with Brad?
Why doesn’t she want kids?
Why is she single?
Seriously though, where the heck are those kids????
These headlines are long overdue to be debunked.
Jennifer Aniston “never wanted kids“
For decades, one rumor in particular haunted Aniston. The rumor started right around when her separation from Brad Pitt became public, and it continued to gather momentum over the years, gaining fuel when Pitt fathered children with his second wife, actor Angelina Jolie, and also when Aniston married and then subsequently divorced her second husband, actor Justin Theroux.
The rumor is that Aniston didn’t want children.
To say that this rumor is highly invasive and not worthy of any response from Aniston would be an understatement. And for years, Aniston did doggedly ignore the rumors, decrying them occasionally as sexist without diving into them any further.
Then, in an interview with Allure in 2022, Aniston put those baby rumors to rest.
Talking about a period that took place years ago, Aniston said candidly, “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road.”
Aniston confirmed to Allure that she had gone through several rounds of IVF in that journey. “I was throwing everything at it,” she said. “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.”
Jennifer Aniston “got back together” with Brad Pitt after the divorce
Another common Aniston rumor has to do, unsurprisingly, with her most famous ex: Brad Pitt.
Aniston and Pitt divorced nearly 20 years ago. Both have gone on to date and even marry other people. But tabloids (and maybe the American population at large) can’t quite seem to let go of their star-studded Hollywood romance.
On Aniston’s 50th birthday in 2019, Pitt was photographed in attendance. Both the actors were single at that point, which served to fuel a wave of rumors that the pair were getting back together.
Unfortunately for their fans, these rumors were patently false.
A source told E! News, “Brad and Jen talk or text once in a while…[but] they don’t talk or see each other all the time. They aren’t a big part of each other’s lives currently, but they wish each other well and have fond memories about the good times they had together.”
Was Friends Jennifer Aniston’s first TV show?
Aniston became a household name (and in the process launched what is arguably the most famous hairstyle in Hollywood history) for her starring role as Rachel in the television show Friends. She was 25 years old when the pilot aired in 1994 — but that wasn’t her first television show.
According to her IMDB, Aniston acted on seven television shows before her big gig with Friends. She had recurring roles in four of those seven shows.
In 2021, Aniston shared how she nearly lost the role that launched her to superstardom. On Gayle King’s SiriusXM show, (you can watch the clip below), Aniston explained that she had shot a few episodes for another show at the same time she shot the pilot for Friends. The show was called Muddling Through — and when the series was greenlit for a full season, Aniston nearly lost her shot at playing Rachel on Friends.
Aniston said she went to the producers of Muddling Through and said, “Please, please let me out of this show. I really love this other show that I’m doing.”
She did eventually get out of her contract, but not before a producer said, per Aniston, “I’ve seen that show Friends…That’s not going to make you a star. This show will make you a star.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Jennifer Aniston is single because she prioritized a career over a personal life…
In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aniston shared how she felt about one rumor in particular that had dogged her for her entire career: the idea that she had prioritized a career over an enriching personal life with friends and family.
“I used to take it all very personally,” Aniston said. “The pregnancy rumors and the whole, ‘Oh, she chose career over kids’ assumption. It’s like, ‘You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically…can I have kids?’ They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.”
She also went on to clarify that she does, in fact, care about maintaining a work-life balance, contrary to what people may think.
“I idle beautifully,” she said, and laughed. “I love to work, but I also love to not work. I’m really OK.”
Jennifer Aniston ate the same salad every day on the set of Friends
Earlier this year, you might have been one of the many, many people who were interested in an article we shared in Wake-Up Call about a certain famous salad. It was allegedly the official salad recipe that Aniston used when she was meal-prepping on Friends, and (again, allegedly) it was a salad she ate every single day for years.
The rumor technically began in 2010, when Courtney Cox gave an interview with the Los Angeles Times, about what it was like to spend a decade on the set of Friends.
“Jennifer and Lisa [Kudrow] and I ate lunch together every single day for 10 years,” Cox said. “And we always had the same thing: a Cobb salad. But it wasn’t really a Cobb salad. It was a Cobb salad that Jennifer doctored up…She just has a way with food, which really helps. Because if you’re going to eat the same salad every day for 10 years, it’d better be a good salad, right?”
Thanks to a viral video on TikTok, Aniston’s “official salad recipe” began to make the rounds this year — except it wasn’t her recipe at all.
In a 2022 interview with Elle, Aniston said politely, “It looks like a delicious salad…but that’s not the one I had on Friends.”
She didn’t offer up her elusive recipe, but she did state that she wouldn’t put so many chickpeas as a salad, citing concerns for her “digestive tract.”
Classic Aniston behavior: always leaving us wanting more.
