It’s 2019 and Ian Halperin is still writing dumb crap about the Uncool Bermuda Triangle. What’s weird is that every time I’ve written about Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston in the past year or so, I feel a quiet relief that the gossip angle is no longer “Angie versus Jen.” Both women are past that. While both women insisted they were past it years ago, I feel like the combination of the Brangelina divorce and Jennifer’s fake marriage to Justin Theroux falling apart was the real end to the “Bermuda Triangle.” Angelina is done with Brad, and Jennifer seems done with “competing” with them in any way. Let’s just bury this sh-t. But no, Ian Halperin has a new biography of Jennifer Aniston and the preview of the book was one of the top stories on the Daily Mail last weekend. I guess a new generation has to declare their allegiance to Team Jolie or Team Aniston. For real.

According to New York Times bestselling author Ian Halperin, Jennifer Aniston is ‘having the last laugh’, particularly over old rival Angelina Jolie. It has been 18 months since Aniston ended her two-year marriage to The Leftovers actor Justin Theroux, and nearly 20 years since her ill-fated marriage to Pitt, which ended after he met Jolie on the set of Mr And Mrs Smith in 2004. There seems to have been no one since Theroux. But Halperin’s book, Friends With Benefits, claims the actress has invested in her ‘inner and outer health’ by spending £200,000 a year on therapy, yoga and laser skin resurfacing.

At one stage unfavourably compared with the alluring Jolie, Aniston has finally emerged from her shadow – and looks fabulous. One close friend told Halperin: ‘Who would have thought that Jen would have ever looked better than Angelina Jolie? That shows you in life it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. I’m so happy for her.’

Of the 350 sources interviewed by Halperin for the book, most say they’ve never seen the actress more happy, content and focused. ‘She doesn’t really seek happiness, she seeks well-being,’ one source said. ‘And clearly she’s accomplished that. She’s really grown as a person over the past few years. She lights up the room wherever she goes. She is a true Hollywood icon. I don’t think there’s been an actress who looked better than Jen at 50.’

Such accomplishments don’t come cheap. Jen’s skincare regime alone – including high-end facial oils and serums – cost £1,300 a month, while her hair highlights are £800 a time. Working with LA’s top fitness instructors costs around £3,200 a month, according to those close to the star, with similar sums spent on a diet coach and customised healthy meals. Six figures a year are spent on clothes and even greater sums on travel, which Aniston believes is ‘key to staying young and curious’.

[From The Daily Mail]

Wealthy, childfree, 50-year-old actress spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on therapy, haircare, skincare and body maintenance, how shocking! I mean… I think Jennifer looks good for her age too, but the quote about her “looking better than Angelina Jolie” makes me feel sorry for everybody involved in the continuation of this narrative. But that’s not all, because of course not. Halperin had to get some additional digs in about Angelina:

The public fallout from Aniston’s marriage to Pitt was prolonged and deeply affected her. She is said to have told friends that she will never speak to Jolie again, and Halperin claims the whole saga became ‘an insane Bermuda Triangle’ which left her ‘devastated and mentally torn’.

‘It’s been so hard for Jen, so difficult,’ Halperin said. ‘Nobody expects her to ever want to be in the same room as Jolie. It would just feel so awkward. Angelina stole her man. She also gave him so many kids while Jen and Brad struggled to have children. I don’t think Jen will ever open the door to Angelina again, under any circumstance.’

It did not help, either, that the two actresses were pitched against each other, with tattooed, bisexual Jolie portrayed as the desirable temptress and Aniston as the more down-to-earth spurned wife. But the reality behind the scenes was rather different. Halperin’s previous book on ‘Brangelina’, as the then-couple were dubbed, claims Jolie was, in fact, ‘quite jealous and insecure’. He wrote: ‘No matter how much Brad assured her, Angie, deep down, always feared he would go back to Jen.’ Halperin says Aniston made her famous appearance on the cover of men’s magazine GQ in 2009 – naked except for a strategically placed tie – as an exercise to ‘free her from all the torment she endured’ during the split from Pitt.

One of Aniston’s long-time colleagues told the author: ‘It was liberating, it was powerful for her. She needed to do it. She basically sent a strong message to Angelina that she was over the hurt and was liberated and feeling better than ever.’

[From The Daily Mail]
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7293445/200-000-year-therapy-daily-meditation-Poor-Jen-Aniston-laugh-Angelina.html

I’m just tired. I’m tired of this. I hope Angelina and Jennifer are tired of this too. There was a small revival of this crap back in February, when Brad Pitt attended Jennifer’s big 50th birthday blowout in LA, and many tabloids tried to make it sound like Jen and Brad were totally going to get back together. I think that with all the time that’s gone by – Aniston & Pitt literally split up 15 years ago – it’s time for everybody to let go. Please.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN and Backgrid.