In an interview withThe Hollywood Reporter, the actress discusses her career, the tabloids, social media, haters of her vaccine stance and the “jarring” Friends reunion. She also delivers in the photo department, posing in a hard-to-pull-off ensemble of bikini top and trouser pants.
“Oh yeah, I’m just getting started,” the Morning Show star, 52, said of what’s to come. “I’ve only recently started to be like, ‘Oh, I got this.’ I think I needed to get over those hurdles of self-doubt and own who I am and where I am and just how long I’ve f***ing been here.”
Aniston has been here long enough to see her entire life dissected for public consumption.
“I used to take it all very personally — the pregnancy rumors and the whole ‘Oh, she chose career over kids’ assumption,” she said. “It’s like, ‘You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?’ They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.”
Why she has been a target versus others is always a bit of a mystery.
“Dolly Parton never had kids,” Aniston said. “But are people giving her s*** for it? No, no one’s tried to put her in a white picket fence.”
As for how she navigated that time, amid her divorce from Brad Pitt and the subsequent Angelina Jolie love triangle, she credited “a godsend of support — just so many evolved, positive people around me.”
She said she also learned what not to do from her late mother, Nancy Dow.
“I also grew up watching someone sit comfortably in victimhood, and I didn’t like how it looked,” Aniston said. “I knew that this person was giving me an example of what I’d never want to be, and I will never ever be that. I think it’s toxic, and it erodes your insides and your soul. And listen, is it a sliver of an annoyance to have to publicly go through dark s*** in front of the world? Yes, it’s an inconvenience, but it’s all relative. So, I had a choice to make: Either I’m going to surrender into bonbons and living under my covers or I’m going to go out there and find a creative outlet and thrive, and that’s what I did. It just happened to be with a movie called The Break-Up.”
While things are different today as far as celebrity coverage, it’s not necessarily better.
“What the tabloids and the media did to people’s personal lives back then, regular people are doing now,” she said. “Although I haven’t seen a tabloid in so long. Am I still having twins? Am I going to be the miracle mother at 52? (Laughs.) Now you’ve got social media. It’s almost like the media handed over the sword to any Joe Schmo sitting behind a computer screen to be a troll or whatever they call them and bully people in comment sections. So it’s just sort of changed hands in a way. And I don’t know why there’s such a cruel streak in society. I often wonder what they get off on.”
Aniston has been attacked on social media for her vaccine stance — and it’s not radical, as she follows the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation for full vaccination against COVID-19.
“You know, someone literally called me a ‘liberal Vax-hole’ the other day,” Aniston said. “I don’t understand the disconnect right now, being bullied for wanting people not to be sick? I mean, that’s what we’re talking about.”
But she’s watching a lot change around her — like Hollywood.
“I don’t know what the industry is anymore,” she said. “It’s not the same industry that it used to be. It’s not that glamorous anymore. It’s slowly becoming about TikTok and Instagram followers. It’s like, we’re hiring now based on followers, not talent? Oh, dear. And I’m losing touch. I’m not great at going, ‘I’m going to stay relevant and join TikTok.'”
Aniston doesn’t have to stay relevant because she just is. Fans tune in for her whether it’s The Morning Show, channeling Blair Warner in Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life or the Friends reunion earlier this year.
ORDER A COPY OF ROB’S NEW BEST SELLING BOOK! Called “America’s Number ONE Gossip Columnist” by The National Enquirer. Rob ‘Naughty But Nice’ Shuter breaks celebrity news every day on his website NaughtyGossip.com where he delivers all the dish about the stars we love in his naughty but nice signature style. You can also catch him co-hosting and breaking celebrity news on Good Day New York, The Today Show, The Talk, Wendy Williams Show, CNN, Extra and Z100’s ‘Elvis Duran.’ Previously, Rob was the Huffington Post’s only celebrity columnist and the former executive editor of OK! Magazine. Rob has also hosted his own Saturday night talk show on Mark Cuban’s channel and his own daily morning show, ‘The Gossip Table,’ on VH1! Breaking some of the biggest entertainment stories, including Jamie Lynn Spears’s pregnancy news, Britney’s first post-meltdown interview, Eva Longoria’s wedding, and baby exclusives for Jessica Alba, Tori Spelling and Mathew McConaughey’s tots, Rob always knows where to find the best scoop. Before Rob was one of the world’s most successful entertainment reporters, he was a publicist working for Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, P. Diddy, Jessica Simpson and Jon Bon Jovi! Now he is bringing all this experience to his new show on I HEART MEDIA in his unique cheeky way, that is always a pinch and never a punch!