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Being a celebrity often means being subjected to public scrutiny, to have every little aspect of your life and body criticised. When Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt divorced, there were claims that he left her because she wouldn’t give him a child. The Hollywood actor has finally reached a point where she can freely disclose the truth about her difficult struggle with infertility.

In an interview with Allure, the Friends actor talked about the personal pain she faced when the circulating narrative was that she’s just selfish. “I just cared about my career. And God forbid a woman is successful and doesn’t have a child. 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.”

She revealed that in her late 30s, 40s, she had gone through “really hard sh*t”, and if it wasn’t for going through that, she would’ve never become who she was meant to be. “I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she said.

Being met the interviewer’s shock at the undisclosed news, the We’re the Millers actor said no one knows about it yet they made their assumptions. “All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. 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 favour.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed,” she added.

Aniston has zero regrets, feels relieved even “because now there is no more, ‘Can I? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.’ I don’t have to think about that anymore”. Despite her making peace with it now, the Just Go With It actor went through a lot these past years. People kept beating the same drum when they saw the Hollywood actor grow her career but not her family which — though shouldn’t be anyone’s concern in the first place — could have been dealt with some empathy.

In response, she wrote an essay in 2016 for the Huffington Post addressing false pregnancy reports at the time. “I got so frustrated. Hence that op-ed I wrote, I was like, ‘I’ve just got to write this because it’s so maddening and I’m not superhuman to the point where I can’t let it penetrate and hurt’.”

She also spoke about the topic to The Hollywood Reporter in December saying she “used to take it all very personally”. “It’s like, ‘You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?’ They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty,” she said.