Jennifer Aniston made it clear that she had wanted to start a family with her ex-husband Brad Pitt.
As the Friends star, now 55, wrapped up her final scenes with the iconic sitcom, where she played Rachel Green, in 2004, she was said to be ready to embrace motherhood. But instead, she tragically found herself heartbroken amid the collapse of her marriage.
It came to light that Brad, now 60, and his Mr and Mrs Smith co-star, Angelina Jolie, had fallen in love on set, and by January 2005, Brad and Jen announced their sudden split. In an unearthed interview with Vanity Fair from September that year, Jen, then 36, expressed her shock and upset over rumours that Angelina was already pregnant – just two months before her divorce was even finalised.
In recent interviews, the The Morning Show star revealed she had always wanted to be a mother and had tried for years to get pregnant with IVF following her divorce. But in 2022, she declared "the ship has sailed", as she admitted she wished she had been told to freeze her eggs.
As for whether she believed the gossip that Brad and Ange had had a full-blown affair, Jennifer said she had made a conscious choice to believe Brad, but added: "At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything, but I would much rather choose to believe him."
The line from friends was that Brad wanted to work out what he wanted in life – as a single man – and had assured Jen, "This is not about another woman." However, the strength of her belief was shaken when pictures surfaced of Brad playing the doting dad to Angelina's adopted son Maddox on the beach in Africa on April 29 that year.
"I would be a robot if I said I didn't feel moments of anger, of hurt, of embarrassment," she said. "I just don't know what happened. There's a lot I don't understand, a lot I don't know, and probably never will know, really.
"I have to think there's some reason I have called this into my life," she added. "I have to believe that – otherwise it's just cruel." Both Brad and Angelina have always denied any romantic involvement while he was still with Jennifer.
But despite her devastation, Jennifer insisted she "felt lucky to have experienced" her marriage to 'fantastic' Brad and stated that she would 'love him for the rest of my life'. Brad went on to marry Angelina, but they divorced in a blaze of acrimony in 2016.
He also remains good friends with Jennifer, and is even said to have apologised in 2017 for the hurt he inflicted. "It was the most intimate conversation Brad and Jen have ever had," a source said at the time.
Brad, who previously admitted to Parade magazine that he spent the nineties "sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out," is also said to have admitted that perhaps he wasn't always the best partner. "He apologised to Jen for being an absentee husband, for being stoned and bored much of the time. He also made amends for leaving her Angelina," the source added.
