Friends star Jennifer Aniston endured secret 20-year battle to have a baby

Hollywood icon Jennifer Aniston has blasted claims she didn't want to become a mother because she's a "selfish workaholic".

The Friends actress, who was married to Brad Pitt for five years, also told how she endured a two-decade secret battle to have a baby. In a rare interview published today, Jennifer, 56, said she felt she needed to correct the "false narrative" about why she hasn't started a family.

Jennifer said: "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.

"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. That’s why I thought, 'What the hell?'"

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Speaking to Harper's Bazaar UK, the actress talked about her unsuccessful attempt at IVF - and admitted she wished she had frozen her eggs years earlier. Jennifer, who played Rachel Green in Friends for 10 years, continued: "The news cycle is so fast, it just goes away. Of course, there are times when I feel that sense of justice – when something has been said that isn’t true and I need to right the wrong. And then I think, do I really? My family knows my truth, my friends know my truth."

The star split with Brad in 2005 after the actor met Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In a previous interview, Jennifer said "nobody did anything wrong" in relation to the breakup. She since dated Justin Theroux for six years, a relationship which ended in 2017.

Jennifer described the subsequent IVF struggle as "a challenging road". In a previous interview, the celeb, born in Los Angeles, California, had said: "My late 30s, 40s, I'd gone through really hard sh*t, and if it wasn't for going through that, I would've never become who I was meant to be. I was trying to get pregnant.

"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."

Jennifer was 35 when she split with Brad, who went on to have six children with Angelina. However, Jennifer previously said the suggestion he left her because she wouldn't give him a child was an "absolute lie."

The November issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale from October 9.