Everything Jennifer Aniston Has Said About Trying to Become a Mom, Candid Comments About Pregnancy Rumors: ‘I Have Zero Regrets’

Standing up for herself. Before announcing her infertility struggles, Jennifer Aniston has been candid about her potential plans to become a mother — and why she wasn't putting pressure on the process. Throughout her career, Aniston has made headlines for several high-profile relationships. In 1998, the actress started dating Brad Pitt after they were set up by their agents. The couple exchanged vows in 2000 but ultimately called it quits after five years of marriage. Shortly after their split, Pitt surprised fans when he was linked to his Mr. and Mrs. Smith costar Angelina Jolie. (Pitt and Jolie, who share kids Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and twins Knox and Vivienne pulled the plug on their relationship in 2016 after over a decade together and two years of marriage.) Aniston, for her part, addressed the challenges of her public divorce from Pitt several years after their split. "There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening," she shared with Vogue in 2008 about Pitt and Jolie's romance. "I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss. That stuff about how she couldn't wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool." After moving on with Justin Theroux, the Friends alum slammed expectations about how she should be living her life. "We're seeing women through a very narrow lens," she told Lorraine Kelly during a December 2016 interview on ITV. "If we don't have a baby or a white picket fence or a husband, then we're useless. We aren't living up to our purpose." That same year, Aniston penned an essay about the unfair pressures that women have to deal with in Hollywood. "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," she wrote in 2016. "That decision is ours and ours alone. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete." Following her split from Theroux in 2017, the Cake actress later opened up for the first time about her past attempts to have kids. “All the years and years and years of speculation ... It was really hard," she detailed in an interview with Allure, which was published in November 2022. "I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it. I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.” According to Aniston, there would be assumptions that she was "selfish" because she was committed to her job. “I just cared about my career. And God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child," she continued. Referring to her marriage with Pitt, she added, "And the reason my husband left me, why we broke up and ended our marriage, was because I wouldn’t give him a kid. It was absolute lies. I don’t have anything to hide at this point.” The Emmy winner noted that she was shaped her the ups and downs in her life. “I would say my late 30s, 40s, I’d gone through really hard s—t, and if it wasn’t for going through that, I would’ve never become who I was meant to be," she continued. "That’s why I have such gratitude for all those s—tty things. Otherwise, I would’ve been stuck being this person that was so fearful, so nervous, so unsure of who they were. And now, I don’t f—king care.” Scroll down for Aniston's most candid quotes about starting a family and pregnancy rumors: