Jennifer Aniston Recalls Her Late Dad John Having ‘Oopsy Moment’ with His Love of Life Costar

Jennifer Aniston is looking back on when her late dad John Aniston fell for a costar.

On the Monday, Oct. 13 episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, host Dax Shepard noted that John had a recurring role on Days of Our Lives for 37 years. 

“He was on that show forever. In fact, the last episode he shot aired like a week after he died,” Jennifer said, referring to the actor’s death at 89 in 2022. “So he worked right up until that was it. That was literally a wrap on John.” 

Jennifer, 56, went on to recall how John and her mom Nancy Dow divorced three years after the family moved to New York, saying, “I was 9, so we got to New York [when I was] 6.”

“He opened up a restaurant while he was shooting, he was doing Love of Life at the time, he hadn’t been on Days — it was Love of Life at CBS,” she recalled of her parents’ split. “And then he moved uptown to be on a show called Search for Tomorrow. But before that, he met his costar on Love of Life… It was a little one of those oopsy moments.”

John appeared as Eddie Aleata on Love of Life in 1975, five years before her parents split in 1980. He went to portray Martin Tourneur on Search for Tomorrow from 1980 to 1984, before taking on his most famous role of Victor Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives.

“And was your mom outwardly saying, I hate him? What were you getting implanted with?” co-host Monica Padman asked.

“Parents weren’t taught what I think parents are taught today, which is, you be kind, you lead with kindness … You can talk bad about them behind closed doors, not in front of your children, because that is abuse,” she shared.

When Shepard, 50, noted that Jennifer wanted her father’s attention at the time, she explained, “Yeah, I would have given anything.”

However, she admitted that she is now “over it,” adding, “I truly am.”

In August, Jennifer told Vanity Fair that she grew up hoping that if she found success as an actor, then her dad would “love me as much as I love him.”

“It was the thing that drove me and was also my biggest heartbreak: trying to impress and prove your value to a man who’s only capable of so much,” Jennifer told the outlet.

The LolaVie founder was admittedly “always wanting to get Pop’s approval,” and she explained that before he died nearly three years ago, she was able to hear her dad say he’s proud of her.

“We had a few of those moments,” she revealed.

In 2020, when Sandra Bullock said that she has “a way of pushing joy and positivity” and asked what inspires that, the Friends alum opened up about her difficult childhood.

“First of all, that was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said in the Interview Magazine story.

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“I think that it comes from growing up in a household that was destabilized and felt unsafe, watching adults being unkind to each other,” she said.

During her childhood, The Morning Show star said she witnessed “certain things about human behavior that made me think: ‘I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to experience this feeling I’m having in my body right now. I don’t want anyone else that I ever come in contact with ever to feel that.’ ”

She continued, “So I guess I have my parents to thank. You can either be angry or be a martyr, or you can say, ‘You’ve got lemons? Let’s make lemonade.’ “