The former Friends star turns 40 this month and looks forward to putting a decade of highly publicised heartache behind her.
Born in Los Angeles and raised in New York City, Jennifer shot to fame for her portrayal of Rachel Green in the US sitcom smash hit Friends — a role for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
With popular US soap actor Yannis Anastassakis, aka Victor Kiriakis from Days of Our Lives, as her father, Jen had Hollywood stardom running in her veins. Graduating from the Rudolph Steiner School and Manhattan’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Jen featured in several off-Broadway productions before moving to LA in 1989 to pursue her acting career.
After the amazing success of Friends Jen starred in several Hollywood productions such as Bruce Almighty, Office Space, Rumor Has It, and the romantic comedies Along Came Polly and The Break-Up. Her latest anticipated box office hit to be released in early February, He’s Just Not That Into You is based on the self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.
Jen’s highly publicised love life has spanned her entire career but reached its pinnacle when she married Hollywood heart-throb Brad Pitt in 2000 in a lavish Malibu ceremony. After five years of what seemed to be marital bliss, the couple divorced with reports speculating that the split was due to Jennifer’s refusal to have children. Jen denied this in a Vanity Fair interview, stating, “…I’ve always wanted to have children and I would never again give up that experience for a career.” Rumours emerged that Brad had fallen for Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina Jolie towards the end of his marriage to Jen — Pitt and Jolie now have six children together.
Jen was linked to fellow comic actor Vince Vaughn and has been in an on-again-off-again relationship with musician John Mayer since. After a commitment ceremony over the new year, this relationship seems to have turned sour for a second time, but Jen sees her 40th birthday as a chance to start afresh. She told MTV News recently, “I just want to have fun this year…I see my life in decades. This one feels worthy of some fun because I feel like I’m getting through a decade that was… let’s just say I’m ready to say ‘See ya!’ to this last one.”
The pressure of fame on her love life has taken its toll with Jen also recently saying, “It’s not fun. You could end the date and shake hands with them and realise it doesn’t work, and all of a sudden you’re a new couple.”
Jen turns 40 on February 11.
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