Jennifer Aniston’s rep shuts down baby adoption rumours

It’s 2021 and the anticipated Friends reunion has finally happened, more than a year after it was originally supposed to tape (not that anyone was keeping track or anything). Yet somehow, Jennifer Aniston is still finding herself at the centre of baby rumours.

Shortly after the reunion taping wrapped, rumours surfaced that Aniston had told her former co-stars that she was adopting a child. Those reports started in Europe, but quickly went global. The problem is that Aniston made no such reveal, according to her rep.

“The story is a fabrication,” her rep told People, while also revealing to TMZ that the story is, “False and never happened.”

On April 12 Closer magazine reported that Aniston was adopting a baby girl from a Mexican orphanage and that the process would be complete by June. The publication quoted an unnamed source as saying that, “Jen felt the reunion was the perfect time to make her baby announcement to the whole gang. While the girls already knew—as they see each other regularly—she thought it would be special to tell the boys when they were all together, as she rarely sees them these days due to their busy lives and work commitments.”

In other words, while some curious fans may tune into the special when it airs (HBO Max hasn’t revealed an airdate at time of press) to see whether the baby news is true, Aniston’s camp says those fans shouldn’t hold their breath.

This isn’t the first time Aniston has had to field baby rumours over her career. The status of her uterus has often been the subject of tabloid headlines, to the point where she finally addressed it in an open letter in 2016. “For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of ‘journalism,’ the ‘First Amendment’ and ‘celebrity news,’” she wrote.

“This past month in particular has illuminated for me how much we define a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status. The sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant (for the bajillionth time... but who’s counting) points to the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children,” she continued at the time.

One thing the Closer article did get right is that the Friends reunion is the first time the original six cast members (Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc) have gotten together on-screen since the show’s series finale in 2004. “The One With the Reunion” was first announced in early 2020 and was supposed to air in conjunction with the launch of HBO Max in the U.S. However, it was postponed various times as a result of the pandemic.

On April 11, the show’s official Instagram page revealed that the reunion finally went down last week, which Perry confirmed in his own now-deleted Instagram post. Filming took place over three days at Warner Bros. Studios, where the show originally taped. (Before COVID-19 halted tourism, fans could take a tour and sit on the famous couch at the show’s café). Production returned to the original sound stage (which sits across from The Big Bang Theory sound stage), and production even made use of the famous fountain from the show’s opening credits.

While there are few details available as to what the actors (who were reportedly paid $2 million each to appear) will discuss in the special, previous reports confirmed that they will not appear in character. Meanwhile, series creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane also sat down for the taping, which is now expected to air roughly a year after the original May 27, 2020 premiere date.

Delay aside, could fans BE any more excited? We think not.

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