When Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt announced their divorce in January 2005, both claimed that his head was turned by Angelina Jolie.
“For those who follow these kinds of things, we want to explain that our divorce is not the result of any of the speculation reported by the tabloid media,” they said in a statement, referring to rumors that Brad had grown close to his Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star.
Said they had been wrestling for a year, the friends were the real reason for the divorce that Brad and Jen’s busy work schedules made it almost impossible to ‘maintain intimacy’.
The problem, it was said, was the constant pressure to be the perfect couple when they were, in fact, just an average man and woman experiencing ups and downs.
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An insider told People magazine: “They gradually lost sight of themselves as individuals. And despite their fun lifestyle and having everything they want, they were not happy. They lost a sense of self.”
A mutual friend of the former Hollywood power couple also claimed that it was Brad who stopped having children and not Jen – as was cruelly circulating at the time.
And when Jen wrestled emotionally with the end of Friends in 2004, she said that Brad – who was filming Mr and Mrs Smith at the time – “just wasn’t there for me.”
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He did not even bother to film the final episode.
In the end, however, the final call was apparently made by Brad, who “wanted to find out who he was” as a single man, despite Jen’s plea to stay married.
Jen admitted that she wanted Brad to stay and work through her problems, Jen told Vanity Fair: ‘It’s just complicated … You’re two people who are constantly evolving, and there will be times that you changes collide. There are all these levels of growth – and if you stop growing, that’s when the problems happen. “
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But Jennifer’s best friend and Friends co-star Courteney Cox revealed there was another layer to her divorce.
Despite refusing Brad an affair with Angelina, he had, according to Courteney, warned his wife about his intense feelings for the Lara Croft star.
“I don’t think he physically started an affair, but I do think he was attracted to her,” she told Vanity Fair after he and Brad and Jen came to Anguilla on one last vacation.
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She went on to say, “There was a connection, and he was honest about it with Jen. Most of the time, when people are attracted to other people, they don’t tell it. At least he was honest about it.
“It was an attraction where he fought for a period.”
It wasn’t long after Brad and Jen parted ways that he was pictured playing happy families on a beach in Kenya with Angelina and her then-toddler son Maddox, confirming Jen’s worst fears.
And just months later, Jen was heartbroken when it was revealed that Angelina was expecting her first baby.
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