Jennifer's relationship with both John and her late mother Nancy Dow was tense at times, despite the fact that they had many touching father-daughter moments over the years.
Jennifer Aniston reminisced on her memories with her parents over the weekend, as she celebrated her 54th birthday. The Friends actress posted a rare black-and-white throwback picture of herself as a young child with her late parents John Aniston and Nancy Dow after celebrating her 54th birthday on Saturday.
"Thinking about these two humans that created me as I bask in the afterglow of a beautiful birthday," she wrote in the Instagram caption on Sunday, sharing gratitude for all the wishes she received. She wrote, "Thank you ALL for my beautiful birthday wishes. I felt sooooo much love from so many and ALL of it is going to carry me through this wild and beautifully unknown year ahead. I love you!"
John Aniston had a successful career in television and, like his well-known daughter, worked in Hollywood. He earned the Daytime Emmys Lifetime Achievement Award in June 2022 for his depiction of Victor Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives, a character for which he was best known. Jennifer's relationship with both John and her late mother Nancy Dow was tense at times, despite the fact that they had many touching father-daughter moments over the years, according to PEOPLE.
The Morning Show actress's parents divorced when she was a little girl. In a 2020 interview with her friend Sandra Bullock for Interview Magazine, Jennifer shared, “I think that it comes from growing up in a household that was destabilized and felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to each other, and witnessing certain things about human behavior that made me think: 'I don’t want to do that,'” she shared, adding, “I guess I have my parents to thank. You can either be angry or be a martyr, or you can say, 'You’ve got lemons? Let’s make lemonade.'”
Nancy Dow, Jennifer's mother, was an actress best known for playing Teresa in 1967's The Wild Wild West. “She was a model and she was all about presentation and what she looked like and what I looked like,” Aniston opened up about their relationship to The Sunday Telegraph, per Vogue, adding, “I did not come out the model child she’d hoped for and it was something that really resonated with me, this little girl just wanting to be seen and wanting to be loved by a mum who was too occupied with things that didn’t quite matter.”
In 1999, Nancy published the autobiography From Mother and Daughter to Friends, a frank account of their tumultuous relationship. Jennifer spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in 2015 about her mother-daughter relationship, which she described as "fine" at the time. Aniston revealed to PEOPLE in a statement a year later that Nancy passed away in May 2016 at the age of 79.
"No matter how complicated and difficult the relationship between Nancy and Jennifer may have been, it is heartbreaking for any daughter to lose her mother," a source close to the family told PEOPLE after Nancy's death. "Nancy fought a very long battle, with many ups and downs, and Jennifer is grateful for the happy times they shared," the source added.
References:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cok8X1dP_Bp/
https://people.com/tv/jennifer-aniston-parents-everything-to-know/
https://people.com/tv/jennifer-aniston-discusses-relationship-mother-nancy/
Cover Image Source: (L) Getty Images | Frazer Harrison ; (R) Instagram | @jenniferaniston
