Jennifer Aniston Opens Up About Fertility Struggles, Reveals Narrative About Not Wanting Kids Affects Her

Jennifer Aniston is setting the record straight about public narratives suggesting she decided not to have children because she was focused on her career, particularly following her 2005 divorce from Brad Pitt.

“They didn’t know my story, or what I’d been going through over the past 20 years to try to pursue a family, because I don’t go out there and tell them my medical woes,” Aniston told Harper’s Bazaar U.K. in an interview published October 8. “That’s not anybody’s business.”

“But there comes a point when you can’t not hear it — the narrative about how I won’t have a baby, won’t have a family, because I’m selfish, a workaholic,” she continued. “It does affect me — I’m just a human being. We’re all human beings.”

The 56-year-old, who revealed to Allure in 2022 that she underwent years of in vitro fertilization (IVF), ultimately decided to address the speculation in a 2016 HuffPost op-ed criticizing the media’s treatment of women.

“That’s why I thought, ‘What the hell?’” she recalled. “I knew a lot of women at the time who were trying to have kids, who were dealing with IVF. So it did feel like it was not only for myself, but for any women who were struggling with the same issue.”

The Friends alum also noted how the media landscape has shifted in recent years, saying the “circle of shame” has diminished. Aniston recently began dating hypnotherapist Jim Curtis.