A fairy-tale romance with America’s sweetheart ended in 2005. After that, she quickly became the target of tabloids in a nightmare pursuit.
Jennifer Aniston’s journey from sitcom darling to A-list star and how her love life became a favorite of gossip hounds is the subject of a new book, “Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s.”
It tells the story of nine women who “defied the hell of celebrity” and how they were “devoured by fame”.
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“This kind of portrayal of her as a baby-hungry woman. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny,” author Sarah Dittum told US Newzs Digital. “The tabloid version of her is exaggerated and imagined so everyone can feel their feelings about what women in general are deciding to do with their lives.”
“She kind of became the stand-in for that whole discussion,” Dittum added.
Aniston’s rep told US Newzs Digital, “We have not read Ms. Detum’s book and have no comment to offer.”
The “Friends” star rose to a new level of fame in 2000 when she married actor Brad Pitt. They were quickly crowned Hollywood’s golden couple before scandal led to their split.
In 2003, Pitt played a married assassin opposite Angelina Jolie during the filming of the spy thriller “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” At the time, Jolie had recently separated from her ex-husband Billy Bob Thorton. It wasn’t until 2005 that Pitt and Aniston announced they were separating after seven years together. Their divorce was finalized that year.
Pitt and Jolie have been together for 12 years as “Brangelina.” The couple adopted children from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Ethiopia and founded the Jolie-Pitt Foundation in 2006. They married privately in 2014 at their French chateau. But the union eventually fell apart and Jolie filed for divorce in 2016.
Aniston married actor/writer Justin Theroux in 2015. In 2017, the couple announced their separation after nearly three years of marriage, citing their decision as “mutual and loving”. Not only have they been supportive of each other over the years, but they are known to be close.
Unlike Pitt, Aniston was scrutinized by the press, Detum argued. She pointed out that over the years, the 54-year-old’s motherhood has been unfairly questioned and there is also the “bump watch” factor. That scrutiny began after Aniston and Pitt called it quits, Detum said.
In 2022, Aniston admitted to Allure that during years of painful speculation, she struggled to get pregnant.
“I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it,” Aniston told the outlet. ‘Froze your eggs. If someone said to me, ‘Help yourself’, I would have given anything. Don’t you think so, so, here I am today, the ship has sailed.”
“The narrative that I’m just selfish,” she shared. “God forbid a woman succeeds and is childless. And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, is that I won’t give him a child. It’s a complete lie. I won’t say it. There’s nothing to hide at this point.”
Detum described the scrutiny Aniston endured as “absolutely brutal.”
“I went back and read some of the interviews and saw how aggressively people pursued her about whether she had kids or not,” Dittum explained. “It’s like being at a family Christmas dinner and your relatives keep asking you when you’re going to have kids. It only happens to you in the mass media every time you go out for an interview.
“It’s hard to read it and see it from her perspective,” Dittum added. “And it’s for two reasons. No. 1, because she’s a woman, and there’s always been more focus on women and their fertility than on men and their fertility.
“However, because of the global fan investment in her and Brad Pitt’s relationship and this expectation that they were going to go from being a golden couple to being a golden family. People wanted that for her, and when it didn’t happen they’d be asking her questions about why it didn’t happen, which is very unpleasant for her.”
Unlike other celebrities Detum studied, Aniston has persevered over the years, she notes.
“One of the things I thought about a lot when I was writing this book was the different ways people deal with celebrity,” Detum said. “Some people cringe at that image.
“Jennifer Aniston … she’s more interested in acting, more in comedy than being a celebrity, I think. So, she doesn’t do a lot of ‘celebrity’ stuff. She always says she’s obsessed with social media. And doesn’t understand why anyone would be on it.”
“One of the things that saved her was that she was able to maintain her dignity.
“While she’s dealing with incredibly inappropriate questions, I’m surprised that she doesn’t necessarily avoid the implications of fertility and relationships in the film choices she’s making. And to some extent, if you’re a woman in Hollywood, you’re going. To get romantic roles, you’re going to get a wife, a girlfriend, whatever.
“But looking at the stuff she’s done, she’s picked some [projects} front and center, the idea of wanting a family and those things,” Dittum continued. “But I think it’s about what roles you’re offered. And you can see that there was a dearth of good roles for someone coming out of network television in that period. And it’s only when you get to the streaming explosion that you suddenly have good roles for women on TV again.
Although the press has previously portrayed Aniston as “perpetually broody and a little sad” or “sad gen,” Dittum says the actress has proven she’s got something.
“She’s not living her life with her ex,” Dittum said. “She’s had a string of relationships with very attractive, talented men. She’s had a successful comedy career and is now clearly at the top of her game.”