A few years back, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt broke up.
Brad got together with Angelina Jolie, started a family, and did his own thing.
Similarly, Jen did her own thing too – she starred in an intense amount of movies, donated a lot of money to charity, and became one of the 20 richest women in entertainment.
She also went on to marry fellow Hollywood actor, Justin Theroux; a relationship which led to the pair’s eventual separation earlier this year.
And despite all that Jen has achieved over her painfully iconic time of this earth, the only thing that a lot of people remain fixated on is her faux status as a ‘poor, lonely, childless woman’ – something that she evidently is not.
Over the course of her career, Jen has addressed this constant misconception a few times, the most recent being in the September issue of InStyle magazine.
Jen talked many things in the interview with Molly McNearney: swimwear, sexual harassment, and social media to name but a few.
And then she went straight in to address the chronically ceaseless elephant in the room – her love life, and why her relationships statuses seem to mean so much to other people.
“It’s pretty crazy,” she said.
“The misconceptions are “Jen can’t keep a man,” and “Jen refuses to have a baby because she’s selfish and committed to her career.” Or that I’m sad and heartbroken.
“First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken. And second, those are reckless assumptions. No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors.”
Jen then went on to speak about motherhood and the connotations that still hang over women who don’t have children by the time they reach a certain age.
She said:
“No one considers how sensitive that might be for my partner and me. They don’t know what I’ve been through medically or emotionally.
“There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they are not, then they’re deemed damaged goods. Maybe my purpose on this planet isn’t to procreate. Maybe I have other things I’m supposed to do?”
And she probably does, too.
In the same way that a woman’s job isn’t to have children and keep a happy home, it should be a woman’s burden to consistently explain why she hasn’t had kids yet.
Or to justify her decision not to have them at all.
Jennifer Aniston is a lot of different things.
She’s funny, she’s stunningly beautiful, she’s pretty much the only reason why every woman growing up in the ’90s decided to cut their hair just below the shoulder.
But she’s definitely not poor, and it’s highly doubtful that she needs any of our sympathy.
