real life

Jennifer Aniston: "I've worked too hard to be whittled down to a sad, childless human."

Jennifer Aniston is perhaps one of the most familiar tabloid faces in Hollywood.

Every week she’s pregnant, back with Brad Pitt, pregnant with twins, fighting with Angelina Jolie, breaking up with her partner Justin Theroux, pregnant and ALONE, too fat, too skinny, too old, and, of course, pregnant with Brad Pitt’s baby.

She’s been pregnant so many times we’re sure there’s a remote island somewhere full of Aniston babies. Or, you know, maybe tabloids just blatantly lie – but I’m going to stick with the island theory.

Now, in an exclusive interview with Marie Claire set to hit newsstands on November 15, the 47-year-old has expressed her visceral frustration with the media scrutiny that’s plagued her career.

Aniston appears on the cover of the latest issue of Marie Claire. Image via Getty.
ADVERTISEMENT

When asked why she wrote her widely-praised Huffington Post op-ed, 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? Why are we listening to it? I just thought: I have worked too hard in this life and this career to be whittled down to a sad, childless human."

Indeed, her essay 'For The Record' earlier this year challenged the amount of media attention dedicated to her childlessness.

"For the record, I am not pregnant," she wrote. "What I am is fed up."

In her Marie Claire interview, Aniston has done the unthinkable and spoken about things other than her uterus, sharing details about her life with husband Justin Theroux (who, fun fact, is Louis Theroux's cousin).

"Why is he the right person for me? All I know is that I feel completely seen, and adored, in no matter what state," she said.

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux. Image via Getty.
ADVERTISEMENT

"There’s no part of me that I don’t feel comfortable showing, exposing. And it brings forth the best part of myself, because I care about him so much. And he’s such a good person. It hurts me to think of anything hurting him."

She also discussed how she chooses her acting roles, explaining, "You have to be so madly in love with it and think, I will be so upset if I don't go and play this person...Especially these days, with Justin in Melbourne. It has to be worth it."

Ultimately, Jennifer Aniston's presence as a self-assured, successful and fulfilled woman, who thinks the gossip around her womb is utterly offensive and ridiculous, goes a long way towards challenging the stigma around childless women.