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There’s something about Jennifer Aniston that feels like home. America’s golden girl, who plays just that in her most recent role on The Morning Show, is one of the rare celebrities who has been loved globally her entire career. If you’d asked us 10 years ago, we would’ve said that this likeability could be pinpointed to watching her every night on Friends or the fact that we had front row seats during her heartbreak and marriage breakdown to Brad Pitt.
But it’s 2020 now and Rachel Green and Brad Pitt – save the SAG Awards – are long behind her and the world is more obsessed than ever. Just last year, Aniston literally broke Instagram when she joined the app, amassing over 10 million followers that day (she’s now added a further 17.7 m to that number) and last month, she was finally recognised for her incredible acting ability, taking home one of the biggest awards of the night at the SAGs.
In a cover story for Interview that was released on her 51st birthday, Aniston ponders what she thinks it is about her that people love, going into surprising detail about her childhood and revealing that all wasn’t sunshine and daisies for her growing up.
Sandra Bullock, who was interviewing Aniston for the piece, remarked that Aniston has “a way of pushing joy and positivity,” before asking: “What is it that allows you to stay buoyant and keep from getting discouraged when things don’t go the right way?”
Aniston replied, “I think that it comes from growing up in a household that was destabilised and felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to each other, and witnessing certain things about human behaviour that made me think: ‘I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to experience this feeling I’m having in my body right now. I don’t want anyone else that I ever come in contact with ever to feel that.’”
She continued: “So I guess I have my parents to thank. You can either be angry or be a martyr, or you can say, ‘You’ve got lemons? Let’s make lemonade.’”
Aniston’s parents, actors Nancy Dow and John Aniston, divorced when she was nine years old. Aniston previously opened up about her complicated relationship with her mother, comparing their relationship to the one that was portrayed in her 2018 Netflix movie Dumplin’, where Aniston plays a former pageant queen who then pushes unrealistic beauty standards onto her teenage daughter.
