Jen!

Have you ever read something that has, for whatever reason, stuck in your mind forever? That’s happened to me with every single thing I’ve ever read (or heard) about Jennifer Aniston. I know so much about her that I could write, from memory, an US Weekly-style “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me” for Jennifer.

So I did. It’s important to note that memory is faulty and I did not do any fact checking or research of any kind while writing this, so everything I know about Jen may be false. One fact could be a tidbit about Laura Dern that I somehow attributed to her friend Jen. Others could be things I’ve simply imagined while looking at Jen’s tan, ageless face. Either way these bits of trivia are lodged in my brain, and I thought you might like to let them invade yours. So, without further ado, here’s all the (possibly true) information I know about Jennifer Aniston.

Her ideal night is spent curling up with a good book and a tall glass of water. She stays fucking hydrated. Her cheat meal is kale chips. Her cheat drink is a margarita. Her biggest pet peeve is when you have to pull the toilet paper from under the roll instead of over it. She does Pilates every day. She hates yoga but does it sometimes. She has (or had) a rotator cuff (?) injury. She has a tattoo that’s a tribute to her beloved, deceased dog Walter, who was a very good boy. She and Brad Pitt used to dye their hair the same color. The name of it was sun…something? Once Brad surprised her on their anniversary or her birthday or whatever and wrote “I love my wife” in rose petals in her “Friends” dressing room. Her longest relationship by far is with the wedge heel. She didn’t talk to her mom, a former model, for a long time but Brad urged her to reach out and try to repair their relationship, so she did. Her original surname was Anistakas, but her father, longtime “Days of Our Lives” star John Aniston, changed it. She grew up in Los Angeles but also kind of in New York City? She loves interior decorating. She loves Mexican food. She’s good friends with Kathy Najimy. She was good friends with Chelsea Handler, but they had a falling out, allegedly because Chelsea was selling stories about Jen to the media. Chelsea has publicly begged for her former friend’s forgiveness. Jen is very forgiving. So forgiving, in fact, that she apparently now has a friendly relationship with Brad Pitt, so things are looking good for Chelsea. Her best friend is Courteney Cox. Jen is very calm whereas Courteney is kind of anxious, so their energies compliment each other. Her other best friend is her hairstylist Chris McMillan, who accidentally destroyed some of her hair during a keratin treatment a few years ago, which is why she cut it short again. She hated this shoulder-length bob so much that she took special vitamins so it would grow faster. I liked it. She and Chris started a haircare line called Living Proof, which they recently sold. I bought the heat protectant once and it didn’t work very well. I felt betrayed, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Jennifer, it’s the importance of staying hydrated. If there’s another thing I’ve learned from her, it’s forgiveness. Her natural hair color is a mousy brown. Her hair is naturally wavy, or as some might say, curly. She hates “The Rachel,” the famous hairstyle she had during the first few seasons of “Friends,” almost as much as she hates the aforementioned bob. She turned down “Saturday Night Live” to do “Friends.” She used to date Tate Donovan. She never dated Jason Bateman, but they’ve been friends forever. Oh God, I just remembered the John Mayer years. Like all of us, Jen makes mistakes. She’s so relatable. She called Vince Vaughn, whom she dated after divorcing Brad, her “defibrillator” because he brought her back to life with laughter. She’s never publicly said a bad word about Angelina Jolie, which is classy. as. hell. Brad is “missing a sensitivity chip.” (I realize this is not a fact about Jennifer herself, but it’s one of the most memorable things she’s ever said.) She and Brad announced their separation while vacationing on some beachy island (Anguilla?) with Courteney Cox and David Arquette. They looked happy. I was devastated. She frequently goes on vacation with Jimmy Kimmel, Howard Stern and their wives. Her favorite vacation destination is Cabo san Lucas. In her teens and early 20s, she was heavier. Then she stopped eating fast food and started working out and achieved the slim, toned physique she’s known for. She likes to tan, but frequently uses fake-tanner, which is probably why her skin still looks so great. Once she was photographed tanning topless in her yard by a paparazzo who took the photo from over a fence or a wall or something. She sued him and won. Don’t fuck with Jen. She loves wearing black (and it looks great on her!). She wore bootcut jeans longer than she should have, which is exactly the type of thing that makes her so likable. She and Brad used to smoke a lot of weed, or at least used to imply that they smoked a lot of weed. Justin Theroux wants to write a TV show for her. (I want him to as well!) She and her dear friend Reese Witherspoon are about to star in a show about morning news television that’s already been picked up for a second season, thank GOD. Justin’s good friend Terry Richardson once took some beautiful photos of the couple, which is not ideal, but that motherfucker is finally getting his. There’s a famous photo of Brad and Jen sitting in a bathroom smoking during (just before?) their wedding. She says that was the realest moment captured at the wedding. In the photo, they look glamourous and happy. She used to smoke cigarettes. (And maybe still does sometimes?) I don’t want to start shit because Jen and Gwyneth Paltrow are friends now, but once Jen cited Blythe Danner as an example of true beauty but said her daughter Gwyneth was merely pretty. My sister told me about this a decade or so ago and I never actually read it myself, but I’ve never doubted it for a second.

Well, I guess I know more than 25 things about Jennifer Aniston! In fact, I think I know more about her than I do about any of my real-life friends, perhaps even more than I know about myself. Anyway, now you also know all the things I know about her which, I must reiterate, may not be true! Who knows? Only Jen herself.