Jennifer Aniston Reflects on Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie 'Love Triangle,' Dating Rumors

It was a crazy time in her life, with the end of their marriage setting off a tabloid saga that continues to this day. In the 2005 profile, she called his W magazine spread with Jolie "tremendously insensitive," reacted to paparazzi photos of the pair as a couple, and said she still had love for Pitt despite all that transpired after the split, believing he never cheated.

"I haven't looked at that article in forever. I just remember the experience of doing it -- which was kind of jarring. It was also such a vulnerable time. But yeah, that was one for the memoirs," she tells VF now. "Journalism back then felt more like a form of a sport. There's obviously some PTSD we all have, which is why these [interviews] scare me. How are they going to misinterpret my words or take something out of context? And one line nowadays ..."

VF noted she still refers to that era as "the love triangle" years, saying her advice to herself at the time was to "Just pick yourself up by the bootstraps and keep on walking, girl."

"It was such juicy reading for people. If they didn't have their soap operas, they had their tabloids," Aniston added of the media frenzy around the breakup and Pitt's quick rebound with Jolie. "It's a shame that it had to happen, but it happened. And boy did I take it personally."

"I didn't have a strong enough constitution to not get affected by it," she says now. "We're human beings, even though some people don't want to believe we are. They think, 'You signed up for it, so you take it.' But we really didn't sign up for that."

Aniston was married to Pitt from 2000-2005, before later marrying Justin Theroux in 2015. They were married for three years, before splitting in 2018. Since then, she's been linked to men including Pedro Pascal, Barack Obama and new rumored beau, Jim Curtis.

"I don't think anyone really pays attention to reports like that if you’re the subject of them," Aniston told VF of the Obama rumor, saying she "was lucky enough to have dinner with Michelle a month ago" and the gossip "wasn't even brought up."

Her rep, meanwhile, declined to comment on her relationship with Curtis ... while longtime BFF Sandra Bullock said the two actress often "try to figure out the genesis of where some of these stories come from. "But 75 percent of the time, we just cannot. They're literally pulled out of the ether," added Bullock. "She's so beloved that you go, 'I want that person to have their person,' even if that person doesn't want a person."

Fellow friend Jason Bateman also gave some insight into Aniston's dating life.

"It's not surprising to me that she's not some serial dater, not because she's overly picky or snobby. You don't need to be some superhero to grab her attention. If you are comfortable in your skin, she gravitates to you," he shared. "The challenge is for a guy to see past her fame and charisma and presence and beauty -- to not be distracted by that -- and tune into the stuff at the deep core."

Read the full cover story here. The September issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands August 19.