Jennifer Aniston has spoken about her decision not to have children, revealing she previously underwent IVF treatment.
Despite being an Emmy winner with a hugely successful career on both the big and small screen, the tabloid press has previously made much fuss around the former Friends star’s personal life, including her two previous marriages and the fact she is not a mother.
In a new interview with Allure magazine, Jen spoke about her life choices stating: “I would say my late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard shit, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be.
“That’s why I have such gratitude for all those shitty 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 fucking care.”
More specifically, the Morning Show actor spoke about how “hard” she found it to have so much media speculation around whether she would have children, at a time she was privately undergoing IVF treatment.
“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she told the magazine.
“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 favour’. You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”
“I have zero regrets,” she then insisted. “I actually feel a little relief now because there is no more, ‘Can I? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.’ I don’t have to think about that anymore.”
On public criticism that has been levelled at her over the years, she added: “[The] narrative [was] that I was just selfish. 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.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jennifer revealed she wants to write a book as “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,” she claimed. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
Asked whether she sees herself in a relationship in her future, Jennifer added: “Never say never, but I don’t have any interest. 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’.”
Jennifer is currently working on a third series of the Apple TV+ show The Morning Show, in which she and Reese Witherspoon play a pair of colleagues and “frenemies” working on the same fictional daytime show.
Read Jennifer Aniston’s full interview in the new issue of Allure magazine.