“Poor Jen.” That’s the phrase that started pursuing Jennifer Aniston not long after her divorce from Brad Pitt. One minute, the Friends star is one half of the Hollywood golden couple and the owner of the most coveted hairstyle in the world. Next, she was a sneaky cameraman on the shelf whose husband dumped her for his sexy co-star. Will she ever find happiness? Will she be overpowered by her own biological clock? A public date with someone she’s dating or if she’s going to have kids feels like a coded way to wonder if she’ll ever summon the ability to overcome humiliation. But this week, Aniston put the story in the trash.
Aniston has reason to be disappointed. In fact, it’s surprising that she didn’t speak up sooner. During Brangelina’s peak years – Pitt and Angelina Jolie were together for 11 years and married for 4 years, before their unfortunate split in 2017 – you’ll struggle to find a newsstand without a Some sensational information on the front page about how Aniston manages, and how she can put her divorce after. She chose to keep her advice, keeping a dignified silence throughout the tabloid stories. Her career success includes Farewell earned more than $200 million (£170 million) worldwide in 2006 and Marley and I breaking ticket records on the Christmas holidays in 2008, was considered secondary – all talk was consumed by her private life, in a way that felt more specific and personal than many other female stars.
When subsequent relationships with Vince Vaughn and John Mayer took a turn for the worse, it was food for the “Poor Jen” machine – an example of her life taking a turn for the worse while experiencing the dating phenomenon. dance and continue to be perfectly normal. While some people may have to buckle under the pressure of their lives being used as a public spectacle, Aniston holds her head high and never succumbs to small talk.
The mourning party seemed to call its last name in 2015 when she married Justin Theroux after four years together. Now that “poor Jen” finally has another legal bond with a man, surely that will mark the end of her anxiety about life? However, it only leads to more wondering about the next thing: whether they will start having children, and when, why and how. It happened in 2016, when Aniston used HuffPost spoke out about the paparazzi camping outside their home, hoping to get a photo to confirm her “pregnancy”. No, she wasn’t expecting, she said, and she didn’t have to have a baby on the way for her life story to be valid.
Aniston writes: “This is where I bring up this topic: we have or do not have a partner, with or without children. “We have to decide for ourselves what is beautiful for our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone.” Aniston told us at the time that she didn’t need or want to be pitied. The fact that she feels she has to make such a statement, now that we know of her experience with IVF, feels even worse. When her marriage to Theroux ended in 2017, she had to correct a wave of “Poor Jen” headlines once again. “First of all, with all due respect, I don’t get hurt,” she said In style in 2018. “And second, those are reckless assumptions. No one knows what is going on behind closed doors.”
While facing the press trying to push her into the box to hide in shame, as well as facing unsuccessful IVF, Aniston has entered a new phase of her career, further cementing her position. her taste like anything but the victim. With producer Kristin Hahn, she runs Echo Films, a company specializing in film productions like Cake and Dumplin’ – projects that have seen her deliver some of the strongest performances to date. In the Emmy Award-winning Apple TV+ series Morning, Aniston and Reese Witherspoon serve as the main star and executive producer. In addition to the highly anticipated third season of the show, Aniston also has two additional films in the works and a successful line of hair care products.
Sadly, sexism means that, despite a woman’s career success, finding a partner and having children is still seen as the “ultimate goal”. It still seems to be what determines whether she’s considered an inspiration, or the proof that it’s theoretically impossible to “have it all”. How insulting it is for Aniston to face treatment like this when there is so much to be proud of.
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The fact that she’s gone through all the setbacks she’s faced and instead embraces the positives in her life is something to be celebrated, not a sigh of relief. upper. Aniston is a Hollywood survivor because she knows that if you want to accomplish something, you have to do it yourself. She proved it again this week when she killed the “poor Jen” story once and for all. Here’s hoping she never has to do so again.
