Jennifer Aniston’s latest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s US talk show turned into a chance for her to shut down some of the most outlandish tabloid rumours about her.
The former Friends star stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday night, where the host presented her with a copy of an August issue of In Touch magazine, with the headline “The Truth About Jen And Barack”.
In Touch’s story suggested that former US president Barack Obama had developed a close friendship with the Emmy winner, much to the apparent chagrin of his wife, Michelle.
While Jen’s team denied these rumours at the time, the woman herself also addressed them during her talk show appearance.
“Of all the calls you get from your publicist where you’re just like, ‘oh no, what’s it going to be?’, or the email saying, ‘some cheesy tabloid is going to make up a story’... and then it’s that,” she remarked. “I was not mad at it!”
“That is absolutely untrue,” she insisted, pointing out she has met Obama only once, and actually “knows Michelle more” than her husband.
Jimmy then seized the opportunity to present Jen with some quick-fire rumours about herself that she could either confirm or deny.
“Oh good, we’re going to dispel rumours, I love this,” she enthused.
Unfortunately for her, most of them actually turned out to be try.
While she was able to shut down claims that she installed a “£4,000 anti-aging water filter” in her home just for her dogs and has a “black belt in jujitsu”, Jen had to come clean that she does enjoy a salmon sperm facial, carries jars of olives with her when she travels abroad, had her art hanging in the Moma art gallery at the age of 11 and was once approached for a selfie while nude at a sauna.
Asked whether she really has “a zip-loc bag” filled with her “dead therapist’s ashes”, Jen responded: “Can I plead the [fifth]? That’s a little true… I’m going to sound like I really need a therapist after this.”
She was then grilled about the claims that as a child, her family would “make her belly dance” every Christmas Eve.
“No just Christmas Eve!” she remarked. “[It was] like when you say to your child, ‘play piano for everyone’, or ‘let’s sing for everyone’.
“I get such anxiety when my friends do that to their children, because I have inner trauma from having to perform and belly dance for my Greek aunts and uncles and grandmothers. I get it!”
Jen is currently shooting the fourth season of the Apple TV+ drama The Morning Show, in which she stars opposite Reese Witherspoon.
To many of us, though, she’s still best known for her work as Rachel in the long-running sitcom Friends, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.