"We have to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies," said Aniston.
Celebrities lead a difficult life; they have to keep proving themselves in their professions, and every minute detail of their personal lives gets scrutinized.
When Jennifer Aniston first rose to fame for her role in Friends, everyone wanted to be like her. In fact, people still recreate some of her iconic looks from the show that ran for 10 seasons.
While acting as Rachel Green in the hit TV show, Aniston met and fell in love with Brad Pitt. The two got married in 2000, after which the only thing the world wanted to know was when they would have kids together, even though this was the last thing on Pitt's mind. “When Brad and Jen were in the marriage, having a baby was not his priority—ever,” says one mutual friend, according to a Vanity Fair article from 2006.
However, in 2005 they called it quits, and soon enough Pitt was dating Angelina Jolie, his co-star in the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
The fact that he moved on so quickly left Aniston heartbroken. “It was extremely hurtful to Jen that he was seen with another woman so quickly after they were separated,” says Andrea Bendewald, an actress who has been one of Aniston’s closest friends since they were teenagers.
After her divorce, Aniston focused on her career and emerged as one of the top actors in the industry. A decade later, in 2015, she wed Justin Theroux, but despite the name she created for herself, all people really wanted to know about was her personal life.
Tired of all the unwanted attention, Aniston told InStyle during an interview that “No one considers that it might be a sensitive subject for my partner and I. They don’t know what I go through emotionally or medically. There is pressure on women to be mothers, and if they are not, then they are damaged. Maybe my purpose on this planet is not to procreate. Maybe I’m meant to do other things.”
But one thing that kept bothering the Just Go With it star was that people kept bringing up pregnancy rumors. In 2016 she wrote an open letter addressing the rumors and the absurdity of the standards and expectations for women.
"We are complete with or without a partner, with or without children. We have to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. This decision is ours alone. Let’s make it for ourselves and for the young women who look up to us as an example to follow. We don’t have to be married or be mothers to be complete. We decide what our happy ending is,” she wrote, per HuffPost.
In 2021, Aniston spoke about how she no longer looks at magazines anymore. “I used to take everything personally, all the pregnancy rumors and the belief of ’oh, she chose her career over having kids.’ No one has any idea why I don’t have kids, what’s going on with me on a personal level, on a medical level,” per The Hollywood Reporter.
References:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/09/aniston200509
https://www.instyle.com/news/jennifer-aniston-september-cover
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/for-the-record
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Rich Fury
