The Shady Side Of Jennifer Aniston

"Oh, are you setting Ross up with someone? Does she have a wedding dress?" "I don't want my baby's first words to be 'how you doin'?'" "Just so you know, it's not that common, it doesn't happen to every guy, and it is a big deal!" Matthew Perry's Chandler may have been the most consistently funny of the "Friends" bunch. But when it came to throwing shade, no one did it with more aplomb than Jennifer Aniston's Rachel Green.

And as it turns out, Aniston appears to be just as sharp with her tongue in real life, too. Indeed, the much-loved actor has cut down everyone from socialites and snowflakes to anchorwomen and airlines since rising to fame in the pop cultural phenomenon back in the 1990s. In fact, even her long-running cast mates aren't immune from her pure sass. Here's a look at 14 times Aniston was shadier than a palm tree.

In 2019, Jennifer Aniston finally joined the Instagram revolution, amassing more than 20 million followers in the space of just a few months. And although the star only occasionally posted on the photo-sharing platform, she soon proved she had mastered the art of online shade-throwing.

Just ask poor co-star Matt LeBlanc. The man best known as Joey Tribbiani celebrated a major milestone for the show with a throwback photo captioned, "Celebrating a Thursday night 25 years ago. Seems like yesterday. Thanks to all the fans for watching." He then tagged in Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, and Lisa Kudrow while also using hashtags for Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston.  

It doesn't seem as though the latter took the message in the spirit it was intended, though. Aniston, who shot to fame playing Rachel Green in the sitcom phenomenon, fired back with "You don't have to #me anymore." Of course, this could have been an entirely innocuous bit of social media advice handed out from one friend to another, but most construed it as a sign of annoyance that LeBlanc was unaware of celebrity Instagram etiquette.

In 2022, Jennifer Aniston and Sebastian Stan interviewed each other for Variety's regular "Actors on Actors" feature. And with the latter having just appeared in the dramatization of the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape story, talk inevitably turned to the concept of celebrity.

"Right at the time the internet really shaped a new culture about people becoming famous," Aniston remarked about the scandal depicted in Hulu series "Pam and Tommy." The "Horrible Bosses" star then singled out two major tabloid names, Paris Hilton and Monica Lewinsky, when she added, "This thing of people becoming famous for basically doing nothing." Meeeoow.

While socialite Hilton decided not to respond to Aniston's blatant bit of shade-throwing, Lewinsky appeared to clap back with a bit of passive-aggressive tweeting. The former White House intern, who, of course, became a household name following her affair with then-president Bill Clinton, hit the like button on a particular thread. And its sentiment? Blasting those stars who promote female empowerment while simultaneously demeaning women for their past.

It's fair to say that Jennifer Aniston didn't exactly do herself any favors during her "Actors on Actors" interview with Sebastian Stan. As well as shaming Monica Lewinsky and Paris Hilton, the "Friends" favorite also took aim at those who have risen to fame on social media.

Aniston said, "I feel so lucky that we got a little taste of the industry before it became what it is today ... More streaming services — you're famous from TikTok, you're famous from YouTube, you're famous from Instagram. It's almost, like, it's diluting the actor's job." While some followers agreed with Aniston's stance, others believed that she was trying to act as a self-appointed gamekeeper.

"Jennifer Aniston's parents were both millionaire actors embedded in the film industry," noted one user, referring to father John Aniston and mother Nancy Dow, the former a veteran of soap opera "Days of Our Lives." "Their connections allowed for Aniston to have the career that she has. Not trying to minimize what she did in her career, but I actually think some of this move away from industry elite is good." Another commented, "People are so angry that the industry is more diverse, more inclusive of people from all backgrounds who had nothing but a phone to prop up to showcase their dream when their communities were probably underfunded and overlooked. Let's keep making 'em mad."

Don't expect to see Jennifer Aniston donning a crime-fighting latex suit any time soon. While promoting Apple TV+'s flagship drama "The Morning Show," a series some might say has become just as outlandish as any superhero caper, the actor specifically called out the Marvel Cinematic Universe for diluting the quality of today's entertainment landscape.

"It wasn't until the last couple of years when these streaming services were just sort of exploding with this amount of quality that I actually started to think, 'Wow, that's better than what I just did,'" Aniston said in an interview with Variety. "And then you're seeing what's available out there and it's just diminishing and diminishing in terms of, it's big Marvel movies. Or things that I'm not just asked to do or really that interested in living in a green screen."

Of course, with "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," and "The Marvels" both underperforming at the box office, it seems as though the general public may now agree with Aniston about the saturation of comic book films. And that's not the only comment in the interview where she appeared to be ahead of the curve. Just a year after calling for a Meg Ryan comeback, the '80s/'90s rom-com favorite starred in and directed the theatrically released picture "What Happens Later."

While Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt now appear to be the most amicable exes in all of Hollywood, things between them were inevitably a little more tense in the wake of their divorce. And a W magazine spread in which the "Fight Club" actor and his new other half Angelina Jolie essentially declared their undying love for each other didn't help matters, either.

Speaking about the 2005 shoot to Vanity Fair, Aniston admitted that she was just as shocked as the rest of us to see her ex-husband and the woman he left her for flaunting their romance so publicly: "I'd be a robot if I said I didn't feel moments of anger, of hurt, of embarrassment. Am I lonely? Yes. Am I upset? Yes. Am I confused? Yes. Do I have my days when I've thrown a little pity party for myself? Absolutely. But I'm also doing really well."

Aniston did admit she was giving Pitt the benefit of the doubt over claims he'd began seeing Jolie behind her back, but couldn't resist hitting out at his overall insensitivity: "I choose to believe my husband. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything, but I would much rather choose to believe him ... He makes his choices. He can do, whatever. We're [about to be] divorced, and you can see why."

While many celebrities would have thought nothing of publicly calling the "other woman" every name under the sun, Jennifer Aniston largely kept a dignified silence about Angelina Jolie following the breakdown of her marriage to Brad Pitt. But while speaking to Vogue in 2008, the "Friends" star couldn't resist throwing at least a little bit of shade in the Oscar winner's direction.

Referring to the W magazine shoot in which Jolie and Pitt spoke publicly about their new relationship, Aniston said, "There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening. I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss. That stuff about how she couldn't wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool."

Aniston also made light of a The New York Times cartoon in which she was depicted loading a shotgun while talking to Jolie on the phone alongside the speech bubble, "Hi Angelina ... I decided to take you up on your offer of a 'sit-down talk.'" The "Just Go With It" star said, "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

1997 romantic comedy "Picture Perfect" was one of the first star vehicles for Jennifer Aniston since "Friends" became a pop cultural phenomenon. But there was nothing perfect about the off-screen relationship between the actor and her on-screen love interest. In fact, she was so mean during the shoot that she left Jay Mohr running crying to his parents.

While hosting a 2011 episode of his "Mohr Stories" podcast, the funnyman revealed that Aniston had wanted her then-boyfriend Tate Donovan to play opposite her. But when Mohr was cast instead, she became hellbent on making his life a misery: "As she's walking toward us to walk past us, she's pointing to [co-star] Illeana Douglas and she goes, 'Six guys they screen tested. Six!' ... And then points at me and goes, 'The one guy I hate, that's the guy they hire. Him!"

Mohr admitted he ended up heading back home after one particularly tough shoot to seek solace from his family: "I drove to Verona, New Jersey, to my mom and dad's house. I put my head in my mother's lap, and I cried ... My mom thinks I'm like HIV-positive, I've killed someone ... I go, 'She's so mean ... I finally got a leading role, a romantic leading man in a movie. I'm number two on the call sheet, that's impossible, and she's just so mean.'"

While "Friends" remains a permanent part of the popcultural landscape, it has come under scrutiny in recent years for its questionable attitudes to race, sexuality, and a whole host of other thorny issues. But in an interview with AFP, (via Los Angeles Times) Jennifer Aniston stated that she believes that it's unfair to judge the very '90s show through a 2020s lens.

The star, who played Rachel Green on the hit sitcom, said, "There's a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of "Friends" and find them offensive. There were things that were never intentional and others ... well, we should have thought it through — but I don't think there was a sensitivity like there is now."

Aniston also hit out at the general concept of cancel culture while talking to the Wall Street Journal during promotion for "The Morning Show," the Apple TV+ drama which explores the same subject: "I probably just got canceled by saying that. I just don't understand what it means ... Is there no redemption? I don't know. I don't put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket."

Shortly before landing the role of Rachel Green that would instantly catapult her to worldwide stardom, a then-relatively unknown Jennifer Aniston bagged the leading lady part in a horror that would spawn a long-running franchise. But it's fair to say that the actor isn't particularly proud of helping to kickstart the series known as "Leprechaun."

"There's loads of movies where you're thinking: 'Oh god, this is just... how am I going to survive this in my future?'" Aniston remarked in a 2019 interview with InStyle. And then it's a cult ... 'something' because it's so embarrassing." After clarifying that she wasn't referring to "Office Space," the box office flop-turned-cult classic she starred in at the turn of the century, the A-lister confirmed she was referring to the slasher world's ultimate diminutive Irish folk legend.

That same year, Aniston told "The Howard Stern Show" that she'd been forced to rewatch her cinematic debut with her future husband Justin Theroux for "s***s and giggles," adding, "It was one of those things when I tried to get that remote out of his hand and there was just no having it. He was like, 'No, no, no, no, this is happening.' I just kept walking in and out, cringing."

Kanye West could start an argument with a paper bag, but it was still something of a surprise to see the provocative rapper get into a feud with Jennifer Aniston in 2020. Although in his defense, the "Friends" favorite did kinda start it.

Yes, Aniston made an unlikely enemy when she took to Instagram to declare who she'd voted for in the presidential election. And unsurprisingly, it wasn't the "Gold Digger" rapper. Indeed, after naming Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as her political candidates of choice, the actor implored followers not to waste their say: "Vote for equal human rights, for love, and for decency. P.S. It's not funny to vote for Kanye. I don't know how else to say it. Please be responsible."

Unsurprisingly, West didn't take this spot of shade-throwing lying down. The hip-hop star shared an article about Aniston's remarks on X, formerly known as Twitter, before claiming that his recent three-hour guest appearance on "The Joe Rogan Show" had got the elite 'shook.' He then further clapped back with the zinger (via The Sun), ""Friends" wasn't funny either."

When asked by podcast "Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino" about Apple TV+'s flagship drama "The Morning Show," and the leading lady character said to be inspired by her, Katie Couric gave something of a mixed review: "I think Jennifer Aniston is great. ... I think the character as a whole, I wish they had made her more charismatic because I think you need a certain ebullience to pull off a show like that."

Couric's slightly salty response may well have been a response to Aniston's comments on a late night chat show several years earlier. During a 2013 episode of "Chelsea Lately," host Chelsea Handler told her close pal (via Daily Mail), "Katie Couric was asking me on her show about your wedding and I had to act like I didn't even know you were engaged because I didn't know that was out."

Aniston seemed perturbed that she'd been the topic of conversation, responding, "What's Katie Couric? Is she a legitimate journalist? Is she getting tabloidy? Wasn't she on the 'Today' show?" She also laughed when Handler replied, "She was on the 'Today' show. She got a demotion to her own show."

Few things exemplify the double standards men and women face in Hollywood better than the red carpet premiere. While the latter need to be dressed up to the nines to avoid being scrutinized by the fashion police, the former can turn up looking like they're on a trip to Walmart. Just look at the differences in effort shown by Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston when they attended a Los Angeles screening of their Netflix sequel "Murder Mystery 2."

While the "Friends" star sported an Atelier Versace dress for the occasion, her co-star decided to rock up in a sweatshirt. And Aniston made it clear that she didn't appreciate Sandler's sartorial choices when she was interviewed on "Entertainment Tonight."

As the funnyman gatecrashed her chat, Aniston, not unreasonably, joked, "What the hell are you doing? I'm not standing next to him." Sandler then claimed that he was only following his co-star's orders via text message before she corrected him, "I said, 'Please don't wear your sweatshirt.'"

Things got slightly awkward on the red carpet of the 2020 Golden Globes when Jennifer Aniston chided Ryan Seacrest for his activity in the real estate market. Although she tried to pass it off as a joke, it was clear that the "Friends" star was a little aggrieved with the "American Idol" host for swooping in on her dream property.

"How's my home," Aniston questioned Seacrest almost immediately during E!'s "Live from the Red Carpet" coverage. When asked to explain, the actor said, "You bought your home from Ellen [DeGeneres] and Portia [de Rossi] and it was a home that I always coveted and she kept, basically giving me a lot of ... 'blank.'" After being told by the host that DeGeneres was on her way, a slightly snarky Aniston responded, "I know she's coming, trust me, we've been in contact. Well aware."

Seacrest tried to appease his guest by inviting her to his humble abode before she asked whether the poker table was still a feature. Desperately trying to change the topic of conversation, the TV personality reassured her, "We'll get into it later."

Jennifer Aniston better hope that she never has to travel on an American-owned airline again. As due to the less-than-flattering treatment the "Friends" star gave them in a TV commercial for Emirates, she's unlikely to be welcomed on board.

The advert sees Aniston suffering from a bad dream in which she's — shock! horror! — forced to travel on a dimly-lit aircraft that doesn't have shower facilities or every alcoholic drink on tap. Instead of pointing her in the direction of a cubicle or fully-equipped bar, the condescending flight attendants simply laugh at the loofah-carrying star and offer her a hand towel and some peanuts.

Thankfully for the poor, deprived A-lister, she soon wakes up to find herself wrapped up all cozily in a blanket inside a first-class Emirates cabin. "It was a nightmare," the relieved Aniston says before telling the barman mixing her a martini thousands of feet up in the air. "I was on a plane and it was nothing like this."