Aniston ‘threw everything at IVF’ in pregnancy bid
Hollywood star opens up about fertility struggles as she admits media scrutiny was ‘very hard’ on her
‘I actually feel a little relief now because there is no more, “Can I?” I don’t have to think about that anymore’
JENNIFER ANISTON has revealed for the first time that she went through IVF, saying she was “throwing everything at it” to become a mother.
The Hollywood actress and former Friends star opened up about her struggles with fertility, something she has received intense media scrutiny about, saying that it “was a challenging road” for her. “I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it,” she said.
The award-winning actress added: “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.”
Ms Aniston, now 53, spoke openly about her fertility challenges in Allure magazine’s December issue, saying “all the years and years and years of speculation” were “very hard” on her.
Reflecting on a period years ago, when she was in her late 30s and 40s, the actress said she went through “really hard shit”, explaining: “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road.”
She told The Hollywood Reporter last year that she used to take all the pregnancy rumours “very personally”, especially the assumption that she chose her career over motherhood. However, the actress says she has “zero regrets”, telling Allure: “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.”
Ms Aniston married Brad Pitt in 2000 but they divorced five years later. She was with Justin Theroux, another actor, from 2011 to 2018, and they married in 2015.
Addressing the intense scrutiny she received over the possibility of pregnancy during her marriage to Pitt, she said: “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,” she conceded.
The actress, currently filming the third season of The Morning Show, said the narrative spun was one that she was just “selfish,” that she only cared about her career.
“God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child,” she added.
She wrote an opinion piece about the issue in The Huffington Post in 2016, entitled ‘For The Record’, in which she said she was “fed up” of the “sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily” in tabloid newspapers and speculation on social media.
Ms Aniston, who has two films coming out, also told Allure that she doesn’t have “any interest” in a relationship at the moment.
She said: “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’.”