Alex Carson
Jennifer Aniston may be the beautiful girl next door to television audiences. However, the young star was never quite able to achieve this level of perfection in the eyes of her mother. Jennifer and her mother maintained a very tumultuous relationship until her mother’s death in 2016. Jennifer has also had a difficult relationship with her father over the years. Although Jennifer Aniston has mended her relationship with her father, her relationship with her mother will be forever tainted due to the fact that her mother is no long alive to make amends. Join Facts Verse as we examine the tragic tale of Jennifer Aniston’s parents.
Jennifer Aniston has never been shy about sharing the fact that she had a difficult time when she was growing up. Her father left her mother when the star was young, and her relationship with her mother was never very healthy. Both of her parents were veteran actors, which affected their views on parenting in different ways.
Jennifer’s father was adamant that he didn’t want his daughter pursuing any career in Hollywood due to the fact that he was afraid she might get rejected as a result of the industry’s strict beauty standards. While this may seem like a well-intentioned notion, it affected the young woman’s self-esteem and only made her that much more driven to succeed in Hollywood. Contrastingly, Jennifer’s mother was so caught up in the beauty standards of the industry that she made young Jennifer feel insecure by imposing them on her.
Jennifer’s parents are John Aniston and the now-deceased Nancy Dow. Her father has maintained healthy gigs on television, including a role on the popular soap opera Days of Our Lives that he has occupied since 1985. Her mother performed in a handful of roles between 1966 and 1969, including a role in the show Wild Wild West. She only acted on film once more before her death, playing a very small role in a 2004 film by the name of Pure.
Jennifer’s mother was strict about the way that Jennifer looked. Nancy’s Hollywood attitude to beauty always made the young Jennifer feel inferior. In her teenage years, Jennifer rebelled with a style that saw the young star trying to look as unattractive as possible. However, she would use her insecurities to drive herself to be the best that she could be during her Hollywood career. Still, even with this determination, Jennifer didn’t find success overnight.
Jennifer has expressed that the situation between her and her parents allowed her to grow in more ways than just her Hollywood career. The star has said the tumultuous relationship between her and her parents has given her a deeper understanding of how not to treat people. As well, she has been able to put the trauma found in her relationship with her mother to good use in her films roles, such as in the recent Netflix film Dumplin’. In that film, Jennifer played a mother who treated her daughter not too dissimilarly from the way that Jennifer’s real-life mother treated her.
Jennifer has also shared that she was affected by the negative relationship that her mother and father shared before their separation, as well as the hole that her father’s absence left in her life. As with the mental abuse perpetrated by her mother, this experience at a young age caused the star to aspire to be a much more stable person than either of her parents were when she was growing up. Jennifer’s father left the family when Jennifer was only nine years old, and she didn’t reconnect with him until much later in her life.
Despite her father telling her to choose a different path at a young age, young Jennifer still chose Hollywood fame. Whether it was to impress her mother or to prove her father wrong is open for debate. Most likely, it was a mix between the two. Jennifer didn’t find success at first, but persevered. After a few menial jobs in Hollywood, she was given a couple of film roles. One such role was in the cult horror film Leprechaun. Despite her early roles not gaining much mass notoriety, they did manage to catch the attention of the right people. Soon into her Hollywood career, Jennifer was cast in the sitcom Friends.
As we all know, it was through her role as Rachel Green in Friends that the actress truly came into her own in the public sphere. Finally, she was able to prove her father wrong. However, her mother wasn’t looking to be impressed. Jennifer’s mother continued deriding her, and their relationship only seemed to get worse after Jennifer’s big break. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button to show your support! As well, subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
Throughout the 1990s, Jennifer Aniston’s mom capitalized on her daughter’s newfound fame by publicizing details about their tumultuous relationship. She did so both in the form of a 1996 interview on Hard Copy, as well as a full memoir detailing intimate details of their lives. This memoir was called From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir. From the title alone, it’s apparent that Nancy was using the notoriety of Friends to get attention for herself. Despite the fact that her book managed to sell several copies, this venture came at the cost of alienating her daughter. This sequence of events caused a rift between the two that lasted nearly a decade. Eventually, their relationship was mended. However, the reconciliation didn’t last for long.
Jennifer and her mother reconnected after Jennifer’s separation from Brad Pitt. Her marriage to Brad had caused Jennifer to reflect on her parents’ relationship when she was growing up, and gave her some sympathy for her mother. Besides this, Jennifer had also had some time to reflect on her mother’s own troubled childhood. As with many cases of mental abuse, Nancy was only perpetuating passive aggressive tendencies that had been passed onto her by her own mother. According to Jennifer, she began to see her mother in a new light and was more accepting of her flaws.
Similarly, Jennifer had long since forgiven her father at this point for leaving their family when she was only nine. In Jennifer’s eyes, she could either harbor the same type of negative feelings that had caused her parents to behave the way they did when she was younger, or she could use these feelings as a learning experience to be the bigger person.
Despite having learned so many lessons about the art of parenting through her traumatic childhood experiences, Jennifer has never made the decision to become a parent herself. The star is now 51 years old, and considers her friends to be her true family. The star has been married twice, once to Brad Pitt and once again to fellow actor Justin Theroux. Her marriage to Brad lasted from 2000 until 2005, while her marriage to Justin lasted from 2015 to 2017. Despite the marriages ending, Jennifer’s emotional wisdom allowed her to maintain positive relationships with both men after the dissolution of the relationships.
Instead of parenting, Jennifer has focused on self-healing, trying to overcome the negative patterns of her parents that she was affected by when she was growing up. She has also channeled that energy into her performances, such as in the aforementioned film Dumplin’. That recent Netflix film featured Jennifer as a mother who was particularly rough on her young daughter.
In Dumplin’, Jennifer’s character was a former beauty queen, much in the same way that Jennifer’s own mother was a former actress. This past caused the mother to impose abusively strict beauty standards on her daughter. Once again, this mirrored Jennifer’s own childhood almost completely. The movie depicted the tormented child attempting to win a beauty contest to impress her mother, much in the same way that Jennifer started her Hollywood career to prove to her parents that she was capable of being just as famous as them and more.
Jennifer’s mother died in 2016, after suffering from two strokes earlier in the decade. According to Jennifer, their relationship had seemed to be almost completely restored near the end of her mother’s life. However, Jennifer found out soon after her mother’s death that she had been left out of her will. The rest of the family had no idea, and were taken aback when it was revealed that Jennifer wasn’t included. A will had already been drafted that included Jennifer, but Nancy changed it soon before her death. No one besides Nancy knew about the change until the will was revealed.
Jennifer was to receive nothing, and all of her mother’s remaining wealth was to go to another family member. Jennifer had been paying most of her mother’s bills in the years leading up to her death, which made the lack of inheritance offensive. As well, the will allowed the other family member to possess a good deal of personal writings that included details about Jennifer’s own life. Her mother had written much more than what was published in her 1999 memoir, and now all of that information is in the hands of someone who could try to profit off of it in the future.
Despite her relationship with her mother ending negatively, Jennifer is currently on better terms than ever with her previously estranged father. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two have been talking on the phone nearly every day. Both have grown a great deal over the years, and John is incredibly happy that he has been given the chance to rectify the mistakes he made when Jennifer was a child. Likewise, Jennifer is incredibly happy to have her dad back!
Jennifer Aniston is best known for playing Rachel Green in Friends, but she’s also done plenty of other great work since her time on that show came to an end! Comment down below to share your favorite role from Jennifer’s career besides her role on Friends, or if you think that she should try to have some kids while she’s still young! As always, like this video to show your support, and subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’d like to be among the first to know when more Facts Verse videos are on their way!
