When Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie, Jennifer’s image transformed from America’s sweetheart to the ultimate victim. Just months after their divorce, Jennifer was stunned to learn during an interview that Angelina was pregnant. To make things worse, the media relentlessly pressured Jennifer about when she was going to have a baby. This is the real story behind the tabloid headlines.
Brad and Jen seemed like the perfect couple. When asked if he was jealous, Brad confidently replied, “Jealousy is healthy to a point, but no, we’ve worked on that one. We’ve knocked that one out.” They appeared strong and happy together in public, but less than a year after that interview, their marriage ended.
Why revisit this story now? For nearly 20 years, the media has portrayed Jennifer as a heartbroken woman who would only find happiness through having children. This narrative couldn’t be further from the truth, and we’ve uncovered details that challenge this misconception.
Jen and Brad were like the couple on a wedding cake: she was America’s girl next door, and he was the beloved movie star. Their public displays of affection, like Jennifer saying “Hi, baby, I love you” to the camera, only reinforced their image as a perfect couple.
However, behind the scenes, Brad wanted to start a family, as he openly stated to CNN, “It’s time. We’ve been in rehearsals long enough.” The media’s obsession with Jennifer becoming a mom only intensified.
After Friends ended, Jennifer was frequently asked about her plans for having children. Questions like, “Jen, when this is all done, do you want to go home and have babies?” and speculations about a supposed competition between Brad’s desire for seven children and Jennifer’s reluctance were rampant. Jennifer insisted these rumors were blown out of proportion, emphasizing that there was no truth to them.
Jen was already struggling with the never-ending baby talk when Brad started filming “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” with Angelina Jolie. They had to take dance classes together, which Brad admitted was a bit awkward. “The two of us suddenly in dance class together was the moment we both got really embarrassed. It’s a very sexy dance; I like the tango, and I think it’s sexy.” Did it bother Jen? She didn’t comment on it at the time, but we dug a little deeper and found out the truth. Jen knew that Brad was attracted to Angelina while they were still married. Really? Yeah. One of Jen’s best friends, Courteney Cox, told Vanity Fair, “There was a connection, and he was honest about that with Jen. It was an attraction that he fought for a period of time.” That’s something no woman wants to hear because it can be your biggest fear, right?
But the next year, everything seemed fine when Brad and Jen went on vacation. The tabloids were expecting a baby announcement any minute, but that’s not what they got.
Then came the shock heard around the world: the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. What went wrong for the one-time “It” couple? What did Angelina Jolie have to do with it? On the same day Jen filed for divorce, Brad did a photo shoot with Angelina, and you have to see these photos.
Brad came up with the concept for that 60-page profile. The tabloids were saying Brad left Jen because she didn’t want to have children, and here he is posing with a perfect pretend family with another woman. You’re married to this guy for five years; you have the same plans, and then he goes and does something like this. It makes you wonder, what’s wrong with me? I don’t think I ever saw them do a spread with five kids. Jen was shocked. I can only imagine how that must have made her feel. It must have made her feel like she wasn’t good enough, and that’s a feeling she grew up with her whole life.
“My mom and I always had sort of a push-and-pull relationship. It didn’t instill a lot of security in how I felt about my physical appearance, just because she was always telling me what to do and how to do it.” So she was already carrying that insecurity when Brad left her, and to make things worse, it seemed like Brad now had this new built-in family.
Brad, Angelina, and her adopted son were everywhere. Photos of the couple on vacation in Kenya with Angelina’s son, Maddox, were all over the place. They often showed public displays of affection when the cameras were rolling. And to make things worse, the media wouldn’t stop hounding Jen about it. “You did say what Angelina did was very uncool.” “You did say that?” “He asked me a question, and I answered it as honestly as I could.”
Then Jen was blindsided when she found out some devastating news in the middle of an interview. I understand she cried for a period of time during the interview when she learned that Angelina Jolie was pregnant with Brad Pitt’s baby. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she got very emotional at that point. Wow.
Betrayal and Heartbreak
Brad wasn’t the first person to betray Jen. Before him, someone she trusted deeply had already let her down—her own mother. The same year Jen and Brad got married, her mom released a juicy tell-all book about raising Jen. It was a devastating blow, and Jen cut off all communication with her mom a year before her divorce from Brad after seeing the book for the first time.
“My God, where did you get that?”
“I got that out of the book she wrote.”
“Oh, Jesus, I’ve never looked at it.”
The betrayal stung deeply. “I’ve definitely tried to let it go. Now we’re sort of standing in our corners, just waiting for the other to approach.”
Between her mom’s tell-all book and Brad’s photo shoot with Angelina, it seemed like no one considered Jen’s feelings. She was trying desperately to heal, living alone with her dog, only seeing her best friends, and seeking solace in therapy.
“She shed tears, and while self-help books can intellectualize the process, the truth is, you sit there wondering, ‘How do I do that?’ You’re frustrated and then get down on yourself because you’re not there yet.”
Jen Finally Stands Up for Herself
As Jen worked through her heartbreak, she had a powerful realization. She told Vanity Fair, “Relationships are two people. Everyone’s accountable. Even if it’s 98% the other person’s fault, it’s 2% yours. You can only clean up your side of the street.”
There was nothing she could do about Brad, but there was one relationship she was determined to mend.
“Your mom?”
“Yes.”
“There’s news?”
“Yeah, it’s been really nice. It’s crazy how your life being turned upside down can lead to wonderful things. For us, it was time. It doesn’t feel good to harbor anger and resentment. We have tools to work through stuff. Everybody does. Hearts mend.”
But the media didn’t want to talk about that. They clung to the image of Jen being miserable without kids, constantly asking if she was ever going to have a baby. And then one day, everything changed.
“I hit a rough patch back then. I was feeling pretty raw, having just come back from a vacation after my mom passed away. It was an intense and overwhelming time, with people crowding around in a really scary way. Then, to top it off, there was a photo of me with a bump on my stomach, circled with an arrow pointing at it in such a gross, objectifying way. I’d had enough.
Jen wrote an article in the Huffington Post saying, ‘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.’ Seeing Jen finally stand up and say ‘Enough’ made me feel like, okay, maybe I can push back against that pressure too. We can be our own person. There’s no checklist of things that define our worth as women. I’ve created and nurtured so many things in my life. We all deal with family or friends pushing us to do things that might not be right for us.
Jen’s story shows us that we aren’t defined by just one thing or by what society expects from us. We have the power to stand on our own and make our own choices.”
