Jennifer Aniston Admits Romantic Relationships Are ‘Difficult for Me’
Jennifer Aniston got candid about challenges she faces in her love life, linking her parents’ divorce to her own ups and downs.
“Watching my family’s relationship didn’t make me kind of go, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to do that,'” Aniston, 54, told WSJ. Magazine on Tuesday, August 22. “It was always a little bit difficult for me in relationships … because I really was kind of alone.”
Aniston’s mom, Nancy Dow died in 2016 at age 79, while her father, John Aniston, died in 2022 at age of 89. They got divorced in 1980 when Jennifer was 9 years old.
The Morning Show actress explained, “I didn’t like the idea of sacrificing who you were or what you needed,” so it was “almost easier to just be kind of solo … It’s still a challenge for me in a relationship.”
Justin! Brad! A Timeline of Jennifer Aniston's Dating History
Although Jennifer had a difficult childhood, she bonded with her father over their shared passion for acting. Elsewhere in the WSJ. interview, she explained that she still sees signs of her father in her everyday life. “I feel closer to him now than I did almost when he was alive,” she told the publication. “I feel like he’s everywhere. I really do.”
This isn’t the first time Jennifer has spoken publicly about her childhood. In February 2020, she called her household “unsafe” and “destabilized.” She told Interview, “Watching adults being unkind to each other, and witnessing certain things about human behavior made me think, ‘I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be that.’”
Through the years, Jennifer has found love, but is currently single. Earlier this summer, a source told Us Weekly that the Friends alum “believes she’ll eventually meet the right person, but she’s not going to beat herself up if it doesn’t happen.”
Jennifer Aniston Through the Years
A second source added that she’s “happy, healthy and fulfilled by her career, family and friends.” The insider continued, “[She’s] been through a lot, but she feels blessed to be thriving personally and professionally.”
Jennifer was previously married to Brad Pitt in 2000, but the two split five years later. Pitt, 59, went on to marry his Mr. and Mrs. Smith costar Angelina Jolie. (Pitt and Jolie, 48, filed for divorce in 2016 after two years of marriage and a decade together. They share six children together, Maddox, 22, Pax, 19, Zahara, 18, Shiloh, 17, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 15.)
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux: The Way They Were
In 2015, Jennifer married Justin Theroux after four years of dating. In 2018, the couple called it quits but have remained friendly. “We don’t talk every day, but we call each other. We FaceTime. We text,” Theroux told Esquire in April 2021, “She makes me laugh very, very hard … It would be a loss if we weren’t in contact, for me personally. And I’d like to think the same for her.”
