Jennifer Aniston Reveals She Spent 20 Years Tackling One Health Issue, but It Wasn’t Her Only Struggle

For years, the world saw only the surface: the smile, the fame, the red carpets. But behind that glamorous image, the beloved actress was carrying private burdens that the public could only speculate about.

Jennifer Aniston spent decades enduring personal heartbreak, all while the world wrote its own story about her. In multiple interviews, she finally opened up about a chapter of her life that was as painful as it was deeply personal: her struggle with fertility.

While tabloids spun their own cruel fantasies and fans drew their own conclusions, she was quietly fighting battles far from the spotlight. And fertility was only part of the story, because behind the scenes, there were even more health issues unfolding in silence.

The Pressure and the Lies

In a deeply personal 2022 interview with Allure, Aniston explained that she felt better in her 50s than she ever had before, not because life became easier, but because she had survived what she once believed might break her.

"I was trying to get pregnant," she clarified. "It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road." Almost no one knew what she had endured. Yet the rumors kept swirling, and the public pressure only made the pain worse.

"All the years and years and years of speculation... It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it," the actress continued. "I was throwing everything at it."

Meanwhile, she wished someone had told her earlier to freeze her eggs. By the time she seriously considered it, her fertility window had already closed.

Despite everything, Aniston insisted she does not regret not having children. In fact, there was a certain relief in no longer wondering whether to keep trying.

But what she could never stomach was the cruel narrative the tabloids spun about her, painting her as selfish and cold-hearted. Gossip columns claimed her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, had left her because she wouldn't give him children, as she cared more about her career.

"It was absolute lies," she affirmed.

Others could brush off those headlines. She could not. They haunted her, sticking in her mind long after they disappeared from the news cycle.

In 2016, Aniston had had enough. She penned a scathing op-ed for the Huffington Post, blasting the media for its obsession with her body and calling out how it had always treated female celebrities.

"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 admitted.

The pain resurfaced again in her October 2025 interview with Harper's Bazaar. For nearly two decades, she had been bombarded with speculation. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, she had been doing everything she could to become a mother, and it hadn't worked.

"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," Aniston said.

It wasn't anyone else's business, but the actress couldn't avoid it.

She continued, "It does affect me – I'm just a human being. We're all human beings. That's why I thought, 'What the hell?'"

When she spoke out in 2016, it wasn't just for herself. It was for every other person fighting a quiet, painful war with infertility.

Today, Aniston is relieved that tabloids no longer hold the power they once did. But she fears that the toxicity hasn't gone away, only migrated online, where anyone with a keyboard can post whatever they please.

The Secret Struggle That Shaped Her

Though her fertility battle was wrenching, Aniston had faced another deeply personal hardship long before that. In a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she revealed something few fans ever suspected: she struggled with dyslexia for much of her life, unaware of the condition until adulthood.

It wasn't until her 20s that she finally received a diagnosis. She had gone in for a routine glasses prescription, not knowing that the visit would unlock the truth behind years of academic pain and self-doubt.

They fitted her with lenses — one with a blue crystal, the other with a red one — then asked her to read and answer questions about the material. She only got a couple of answers right.

"Then they put a computer on my eyes, showing where my eyes went when I read," she detailed. "My eyes would jump four words and go back two words, and I also had a little bit of a lazy eye, like a crossed eye, which they always have to correct in photos."

The diagnosis was a turning point. For the first time, she had a name for the challenges that had tormented her throughout school. She no longer believed she was not smart enough or incapable of understanding.

It also gave clarity to the emotional scars of her childhood. But there was a silver lining to the wounds she had carried quietly for years. Because school had been so difficult, Aniston leaned into her sense of humor, which quickly became her strength. People responded to it. They adored her for it.

And while others might have been praised for math or reading, she found joy and expression in art classes, where her creativity flourished, and in the early spark that would one day become her career: acting. Yet, dyslexia was not her only other issue. She also had trouble at night.

The Restless Nights That Took a Toll

As if fertility struggles and dyslexia weren't enough, Aniston also endured another battle that crept in quietly, stealing her peace night after night.

In 2022, she told Global Newswire that she had suffered from insomnia, a condition that had begun years ago.

"If I don't get a good night's sleep, my next day is really difficult. In working with Idorsia, I hope that we can all start prioritizing sleep health and have different conversations around trouble sleeping," she said, speaking about her partnership with the biotech company. Despite facing this problem, she also had a terrible phobia.

The Quiet Anxiety in the Skies

Even as she conquered Hollywood and handled her health struggles head-on, another issue loomed in Aniston's life: a paralyzing fear of flying.

During an April 2025 Zoom interview with Travel + Leisure, she revealed how difficult air travel had been for her, especially as an actress constantly required to cross the globe for work.

To cope, she developed strange rituals. She would tap the outside of the plane with her right palm and step inside with her right foot first.

"But I have been doing some hypnosis lately, and one of the requirements is to remove all of those superstitions," Aniston added. "I have not been doing the right hand, right foot—and now it's shockingly good!"

Once seated, she managed her anxiety through controlled breathing, sometimes getting up to walk or stretch. She also admitted she was working to break her habit of over-packing, another sign of the underlying restlessness she has learned to face.

Despite her fears, Aniston's career has never left her emotionally scarred. She told Extra in 2018 that she felt lucky to have avoided the deeper wounds of fame. Additionally, she laughed at the speculation that her then-breakup with Justin Theroux had sent her into treatment.

"I've been in therapy for years," she admitted.