Jennifer Aniston has opened up about her decision not to adopt amid her struggles with infertility, saying she always hoped to have a biological child no matter how ‘selfish’ that might sound.
Aniston justified her decision in an early-access episode of ‘The Armchair Expert’ podcast released on Tuesday, Oct. 14.
‘When people say, ‘But you can adopt,’ I don’t want to adopt,’ she stressed. ‘I want my own DNA in a little person. That’s the only way, selfish or not, whatever that is, I’ve wanted it.’
The 56-year-old star admitted that she felt ‘peaceful yet emotional’ about the idea that she might not become a mother.
‘There’s a point where it’s out of my control,’ she said. ‘There’s literally nothing I can do about it. It just wasn’t in the plan, whatever the plan was. It’s very emotional, especially in the moment when they say ‘that’s it,’ because there is a weird moment when that happens.’
Aniston, who is now dating Jim Curtis, had previously spoken about undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF), which she described as ‘challenging.’
‘I was trying to get pregnant,’ she told Allure in a 2022 interview. ‘It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road.’
The ‘Friends’ actress also addressed the long-running narrative that she prioritized her career over having children, especially during her marriage with Brad Pitt.
‘They didn’t know my story or what I’d been going through over the past 20 years to try to pursue a family, because I don’t go out there and tell them my medical woes,’ she told Harper’s Bazaar UK on Oct. 8.
‘That’s not anybody’s business. But there comes a point when you can’t not hear it, the narrative about how I won’t have a baby, won’t have a family, because I’m selfish, a workaholic. It does affect me. I’m just a human being. We’re all human beings,’ continued the Hollywood star.
After her marriage with Pitt, Aniston married Justin Theroux until their separation in 2018. /ra