Jennifer Aniston bravely opened up about her agonising grief after Brad Pitt left her and got with Angelina Jolie
When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston ended their marriage 16 years ago today, fans were devastated by the end of the Hollywood dream.
Jen, too, was floored, having admitted she’d hoped to work through their problems as a couple. But that wasn’t, she said, Brad’s ‘view of it’.
And in an unearthed Vanity Fair interview from September that year, Jennifer, then 36, wore her heartbreak on her sleeve when the interviewer broached the subject of Brad’s new romance with Angelina Jolie.
Describing how the actress looked like she had been “stabbed in the heart” when asked about rumours Ange was already pregnant – two months before Jen and Brad’s divorce was even finalised, the reporter said Jen cried silently for several minutes, unable to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks before shaking her head, too hurt to give an answer.
As for whether she believed the gossip that Brad and Ange had had a full-blown affair, Jennifer said, “I choose to believe my husband.
“At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything, but I would much rather choose to believe him.”
The line from friends was that he’d wanted to work out what he wanted in life – as a single man – and that he assured Jen, “This is not about another woman.”
However, the strength of her belief was shaken when pictured surfaced of Brad playing the doting dad to Angelina’s adopted son Maddox on the beach in Africa on April 29.
“I would be a robot if I said I didn’t feel moments of anger, of hurt, of embarrassment,” she said. “I just don’t know what happened. There’s a lot I don’t understand, a lot I don’t know, and probably never will know, really.
“I have to think there’s some reason I have called this into my life,” she says. “I have to believe that – otherwise it’s just cruel.”
Both Brad and Angelina have always denied any romantic involvement while he was still with Jennifer.
But despite her devastation, Jennifer admitted she “felt lucky to have experienced” her marriage to Brad.
“I love Brad; I really love him. I will love him for the rest of my life. He’s a fantastic man. I don’t regret any of it, and I’m not going to beat myself up about it… It was a beautiful, complicated relationship,” she said.
