Zoey Grossman for Allure
"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."
Jennifer Aniston revealed in a new interview that she went through IVF trying to get pregnant -- but has reached a point where "the ship has sailed" having children.
In a new Allure cover story, the 53-year-old "Friends" actress opened up about going "through really hard s---" in her late 30s and 40s. Putting a positive spin on things, she said that without hardship she "would've never become who I was meant to be" and has "such gratitude for all those s----y things" she went through.
"I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road," she then added, acknowledging "nobody" knew that was something she wanted for herself.
"All the years and years and years of speculation ... It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it," she continued, getting real about her journey. "I was throwing everything at it. I would've given anything if someone had said to me, 'Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.' You just don't think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed."
Aniston told the publication she actually has "zero regrets" when it comes to her journey, adding that she feels a sense of "relief" now "because there is no more, 'Can I? Maybe" and she doesn't "have to think about that anymore."
Zoey Grossman for Allure
The actress also addressed tabloid culture which has followed her since her early days with Brad Pitt, taking aim at the many headlines she's faced over the years speculating over her marriages (and divorces) and what may have been behind her splits from Pitt and Justin Theroux.
Calling out the "narrative that I was just selfish" and "just cared about my career" instead of having a family, she said, "God forbid a woman is successful and doesn't have a child." She then honed in on one particular nasty rumor -- that "the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn't give him a kid."
Of that, she said, "It was absolute lies. I don't have anything to hide at this point."
Aniston, of course, has spoken out on the attention on her body and the public's interest in whether or not she'll ever have kids numerous times in the past. Most notably, she penned an op-ed back in 2016 for Huffington Post in which she exclaimed, "For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up."
"The way I am portrayed by the media is simply a reflection of how we see and portray women in general, measured against some warped standard of beauty," she said at the time, before concluding, "I'm not in pursuit of motherhood because I feel incomplete in some way, as our celebrity news culture would lead us all to believe."
Elsewhere in the interview she explained why she doesn't plan to ever get married again -- you can read what she had to say here.
Read her full profile for Allure here.
