Rachel Green might have had baby Emma, but that doesn’t mean actress Jennifer Aniston did, and the actress certainly hasn’t been shy about expressing her feelings on why that is. Read on to discover why Jennifer Aniston did not have kids and how this journey affected her mental health and relationships.
Why did Jennifer Aniston not have kids? Her personal story
In a 2022 interview with Allure, Jennifer Aniston explained why she did not have kids and how it wasn't entirely by choice.
“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she said. “All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think about it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”
Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt in 1998. Barry King / Contributor/Geyty
During her marriage to Brad Pitt, rumors circulated that Jennifer Aniston did not have kids because she prioritized her career over family and if that was the reason the two eventually got divorced.
“God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child. And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies,” said Aniston.
Jennifer Aniston on feeling complete without having kids
Over the course of her career, Aniston has been married twice—first to Pitt and then to Justin Theroux—and while both marriages ended in divorce, the actress has never felt better.
“We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone," Aniston wrote in 2016.
“Let's make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let's make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don't need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own 'happily ever after' for ourselves."
Jennifer Aniston in 2024. Robin L Marshall / Stringer/Getty
The actress did note that she might “become a mother someday,” but in the meantime, she wants people to know that she isn’t “in pursuit of motherhood because I feel incomplete in some way, as our celebrity news culture would lead us all to believe.”
“I resent being made to feel ‘less than’ because my body is changing or I had a burger for lunch and was photographed from a weird angle and therefore deemed one of two things: ‘pregnant’ or ‘fat.’ Not to mention the painful awkwardness that comes with being congratulated by friends, coworkers and strangers alike on one’s fictional pregnancy (often a dozen times in a single day).”
Jennifer Aniston’s message to people everywhere
On top of people calling her fat, Aniston also wants people to stop attacking women everywhere and learn how to adjust their views.
“The objectification and scrutiny we put women through is absurd and disturbing,” Aniston wrote in 2016. “The message that girls are not pretty unless they’re incredibly thin, that they’re not worthy of our attention unless they look like a supermodel or an actress on the cover of a magazine is something we’re all willingly buying into.”
Jennifer Aniston in 2024. Axelle/Bauer-Griffin / Contributor/Getty
The actress continued by writing, “[What we] can change is our awareness and reaction to the toxic messages buried within these seemingly harmless stories served up as truth and shaping our ideas of who we are. We get to decide how much we buy into what’s being served up, and maybe someday the tabloids will be forced to see the world through a different, more humanized lens because consumers have just stopped buying the b-llsh-t.”
Aniston, 55, is a very proud childless dog lady to her three furry friends Sophie, Lord Chesterfield and Clyde who was even the center of the actress’ first-ever children’s book, Clydeo Takes a Bite of Life, which was released earlier this year.
