Jennifer Aniston’s resilient heart

Jennifer Aniston doesn’t want anyone’s sympathy, says Jonathan Van Meter in Vogue. Ever since her ex-husband, Brad Pitt, took up with Angelina Jolie, she’s been widely depicted as a victim of love, deserving of the world’s pity. She’s well aware of how the tabloids depict her, and it galls her. “This whole ‘Poor lonely Jen’ thing, this idea that I’m so unlucky in love? I actually feel I’ve been unbelievably lucky in love.” As an example, Aniston cites her post-Pitt relationship with Vince Vaughn. “I call Vince my defibrillator. He literally brought me back to life. My first gasp of air was a big laugh! It was great. He was lovely and fun and perfect for the time we had together. And I needed that.” She feels similarly about her on-again, off-again romance with singer John Mayer, with whom she is still close. “I feel seriously protective of him and us. I deeply, deeply care about him; we talk, we adore one another.” At 39, Aniston refuses to subscribe to anyone else’s ideas of what her personal life should look like. “Just because at this stage my life doesn’t have the traditional framework to it—the husband and the two kids and the house in Connecticut—it’s mine. It’s my experience. And if you don’t like the way it looks, then stop looking at it!”