Jennifer Aniston Says She Never Wanted to Adopt Amid Infertility Struggles, Hoped to Share ‘My Own DNA’

Jennifer Aniston says she never wanted to adopt children amid her struggles with infertility.

Aniston, 56, revealed her feelings about adoption during a Wondery+ early access episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast that is set to be released wide on Monday, October 20. 

“When people say, ‘But you can adopt,’ I don’t want to adopt,” The Morning Show star told cohosts Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, per People. “I want my own DNA in a little person. That’s the only way, selfish or not, whatever that is, I’ve wanted it.”

Aniston previously addressed her experience going through IVF, telling Allure in 2022, “All the years and years and years of speculation. … It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.”

She added at the time, “I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favor.’ You just don’t think [about] it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

When Padman, 38, said she couldn’t decide if she wants kids — noting that “maybe it’s OK that I don’t” — she wondered whether Aniston had found “peace” with knowing her answer to that question. 

“It’s so peaceful,” Aniston responded. “But I will say there’s a point where it’s, like, out of my control. There’s literally nothing I can do about it.”

The Friends alum, who is dating life coach Jim Curtis, said there are times when she’s met a man who “would have made some good kids.” But that feeling will “pass within three seconds.”

Regarding parenthood, she explained, “It just wasn’t in the plan, whatever the plan was,” revealing that “it’s very emotional, especially in the moment when they say ‘that’s it,’ because there is a weird moment when that happens.”

In a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, Aniston shut down speculation on her private life, specifically the narrative about her status as a famous woman without children.

“They didn’t know my story, or what I’d been going through over the past 20 years to try to pursue a family, because I don’t go out there and tell them my medical woes,” Aniston said. “That’s not anybody’s business. But there comes a point when you can’t not hear it — the narrative about how I won’t have a baby, won’t have a family, because I’m selfish, a workaholic.”

She noted that the commentary still gets to her.

“I’m just a human being,” she explained. “We’re all human beings. That’s why I thought, ‘What the hell?’”