Nobody has been subjected to more speculation about their love life than Jennifer Aniston. Not just her love life, but her body too. So much so that in 2016 the Friends actress was once moved to write an open letter about the tabloid narrative that has played out around how she looks and who she’s dating for over two decades.
Later she said, ‘My marital status has been shamed. My divorce status was shamed; my lack of a mate had been shamed, my nipples have been shamed. It’s like, “Why are we only looking at women through this particular lens of picking us apart?”’
Since her divorce from Justin Theroux, with whom she is still very close, in 2018, Jennifer has been -as far as we know - single. And, though our society would suggest it is near impossible to be so, it seems she has been happily single, with huge career success (producing and starring in the critically acclaimed The Morning Show) and surrounded by friends who she loves. This has been something of a journey, one might imagine, but one which has led the most famous television actress in the world to admit she has felt empowered by being on her own.
Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer said, ‘I didn’t like the idea of sacrificing who you were or what you needed, so I didn’t really know how to do that. So it was almost easier to just be kind of solo.’ She added, ‘It’s just about not being afraid to say what you need and what you want. And it’s still a challenge for me in a relationship. I'm really good at every other job I have, and that’s sort of the one area that’s a little....’
This all stems, Jennifer says, from growing up in what felt like an unstable home, with parents Nancy Dow and John Aniston divorcing when she was young. ‘It was always a little bit difficult for me in relationships, I think, because I really was kind of alone. My parents, watching my family’s relationship, didn’t make me kind of go, “Oh, I can’t wait to do that.”’
Jennifer, who is promoting the third season of The Morning Show, has previously said in a 2020 interview that ‘growing up in a household that was destabilised and felt unsafe’ helped her learn to stay afloat when things in her life didn't go as planned.
So many women will find it empowering that Jennifer has not just allowed herself the space to interrogate why her romantic life is the way that it is, but also to proudly say that she’s embracing it, and her reasons for choosing to be relationship-free. No one has had to answer to more people about the ins and outs of her dating life, and so publicly faced the end of her two marriages, Justin in 2018 and Brad Pitt in 2005. It may have been a difficult journey for her, but now Jennifer Aniston can offer some reassurance to women who don’t necessarily see themselves settling down, who might see themselves as just as powerful on their own as they are in a couple - and don't feel the need to conform to what is expected of them.