Jennifer Aniston is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of Vogue magazine and, very surprisingly, gives a pretty candid interview — talking for the first time, really — about the circumstances surrounding her break-up with ex-hubby Brad Pitt, her feelings on Angelina Jolie‘s involvement with her then-husband and even her current relationship with John Mayer (there’s even a quote about the possibility of having children — “I’ve said it so many times: I’m going to have children. I just know it.”. To my knowledge, this new interview with Vogue is the most open that Jen has been about her private life, like, ever. Here is Jen on the cover of the new issue of Vogue and a portion of her coverstory interview:

Here she comes, in faded cutoffs and a tank top. Has there ever been a more casual star? A more unrepentant Southern California girl? I am standing in the midst of the dust and chaos—the clattering hammers, the buzzing saws—of the massive construction project that is Jennifer Aniston’s sprawling new Beverly Hills home. It is midday in late September, and Aniston is picking her way through the site. As she heads toward me she looks comfortingly—almost defiantly—the same as she always has. Long, sun-streaked hair. Check. Tanned yoga body. Check. Toe rings and hippie beads. Check. There will be no moody movie-star transformations, no fresh tattoos to prove how unpredictable she is. When I arrived a few moments earlier, a big, genial security guy helped me park my car among all the construction vehicles and then took me to an office where a man named Phil introduced himself as Aniston’s “estate manager.” An elegant fellow with a British accent, he is a holdover from her only slightly more grand life with Brad Pitt, when they owned a 12,000-square-foot Normandy mansion not far from here and a big spread in Santa Barbara. “He’s very…Phil,” says Aniston with a laugh. She stops for a second and, as she so often does, rethinks out loud. “Maybe we don’t mention that I have an estate manager.” And then: “He’s more like the butler.” … The post-Brad Aniston is one of the biggest tabloid stars in the world, and her image moves a lot of magazines. Partly because she took two years off from making films, she has been almost entirely defined lately by the tabloids as a woman who dates younger men and spends her days lolling around the pool in Cabo. Woody Allen recently said in an interview that “thoughtful people don’t take the tabloids seriously. They’re basically a form of entertainment.” Aniston knows this, but it still feels to her like a cross to bear. “You basically watch my life,” she says as we eat our chopped salads. “It happens in front of you. And I can protect it and try to control things only to a certain extent. I think what I’m doing now is letting go of the reins a little bit and saying, ‘It is what it is.’ But there is more to me than just a tabloid girl. 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. 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! Because I feel good. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be any further along or somewhere that I’m not. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” As we all know, ever since Aniston began dating Pitt in 1998, her love life has never been out of the news. Their divorce only ratcheted up the interest in her every romantic move. These days, the public fascination with her relationship with Vince Vaughn seems almost quaint. I ask her if there’s anything else to be said about that time. “I call Vince my defibrillator,” she says with genuine affection. “He literally brought me back to life. My first gasp of air was a big laugh! It was great. I love him. He’s a bull in a china shop. He was lovely and fun and perfect for the time we had together. And I needed that. And it sort of ran its course.” Most recently she’s been linked with John Mayer, whom she met last February at an Oscar party. “Barely knew his music,” she says. “And then we ran into each other a week later, and that was that.” The two began dating—Aniston flew to England to join him on his tour; they took a well-documented vacation to Miami—and partly because of Mayer’s past relationships with Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt, the paparazzi went bananas. Many people questioned Aniston’s judgment; Mayer, after all, is nine years younger and has a bit of a…reputation. To which Aniston says, half kidding, “People need to mind their own business! Did you ever think Claudia Schiffer and David Copperfield made sense?” She laughs, knowing that this has the potential for a good parlor game. “Did Susan Anton and Dudley Moore make sense? Wait! I got more! Did…did…did…Madonna and….” She trails off. “I don’t want to get a dog in that fight…but we’ll think of more.” We both laugh, and then she gets more serious. “But you know, it isn’t designed. Love just shows up and you go, ‘Oh, wow, this is going to be a hayride and a half.’ ” After they split in August, Mayer, having been trailed for days, famously lost it in front of the paparazzi while leaving a gym in New York. In one of the more ill-advised moves in the history of modern celebrity romance, he burst into a rant, saying, among other things, “If you guys are going to…run every lie under the sun…have me as a man who ended a relationship.” Mayer caught a lot of grief for his lack of chivalry, but Aniston chalks up his outburst to inexperience. “He had to put that out there that he broke up with me. And especially because it’s me. It’s not just some girl he’s dating. I get it. We’re human. But I feel seriously protective of him and us. Trust me, you’ll never see that happen again from that man. And it doesn’t take away from the fact that he is a wonderful guy. We care about each other. It’s funny when you hit a place in a relationship and you both realize, We maybe need to do something else, but you still really, really love each other. It’s painful. There was no malicious intent. I deeply, deeply care about him; we talk, we adore one another. And that’s where it is.” The aspect of Aniston’s tabloid persona that feels truly off base is that she is “needy” and “clingy” and “obsessive” about ex-lovers. In fact, just the opposite seems to be true. As evidenced from our conversation about Mayer, she seems entirely sanguine about how complicated and unpredictable love can be. She even seems to have made peace with her ex-husband. When I ask if she ever speaks with him, she says, “Yes!” in a tone that suggests that it is almost a silly question. How is he? I ask. She looks at me for a long couple of seconds and makes one of those classic Jennifer Aniston faces, one that lets you know that what she is about to say is going to be…ironic. “He seems…great?” she says. How often do you talk? I ask. “We have exchanged a few very kind hellos and wishing you wells and sending you love and congratulations on your babies. I have nothing but absolute admiration for him, and…I’m proud of him! I think he’s really done some amazing things.” I ask her if she can remember exactly when the post-divorce acrimony receded. “You mean, when were Brad and I healed?” she says. Yes, I say. “Well, it never was that bad,” she says, knowing that it will be hard for a lot of people to believe. “I mean, look, it’s not like divorce is something that you go, ‘Oooh, I can’t wait to get divorced!’ It doesn’t feel like a tickle. But I’ve got to tell you, it’s so vague at this point, it’s so faraway in my mind, I can’t even remember the darkness. I mean, in the end, we really had an amicable split. It wasn’t mean and hateful and all of this stuff that they tried to create about Brad can’t talk to Jen and Jen can’t talk to Brad because this person won’t allow it. It just didn’t happen. The marriage didn’t work out. And pretty soon after we separated, we got on the phone and we had a long, long conversation with each other and said a lot of things, and ever since we’ve been unbelievably warm and respectful of each other. Whoever said everything has to be forever, that’s setting your hopes too high. It’s too much pressure. And I think if you put that pressure on yourself—because I did! Fairy tale! It has to be the right one!—that’s unattainable.”

OY! I realize that this is a lot to read but the Vogue interview is very long … and there is still more. After the jump, if you so desire, read some more of the Vogue interview where the topic turns to Angelina Jolie (trust me, it’s worth reading) … and also check out a few photos from Jen‘s Vogue magazine photospread …

When I ask her about Angelina Jolie, Aniston asks me to turn off the tape recorder for a moment. Suffice it to say, if there is never any love gained in the first place, there can be no love lost. But she did want to put a few things on the record. (Funnily enough, they involve some of the same issues brought up by the recent profile of Jolie in The New York Times, in which she talks about falling in love on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.) She asks me if I ever saw a cartoon that appeared in the New York Post a couple of years ago that depicts Aniston talking on the phone in her kitchen. The bubble over her head says, HI ANGELINA…I DECIDED TO TAKE YOU UP ON YOUR OFFER OF A “SIT-DOWN TALK.”…In the drawing, Aniston is loading a shotgun, and there is a copy of Vogue sitting next to her. (The cartoon was inspired by an interview I did with Jolie for this magazine in January 2007 in which she said she would welcome the opportunity to “sit down” with Aniston.) Someone sent Aniston the cartoon (“the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” she says), and afterward, she could not resist the urge to buy a copy of Vogue to see what the fuss was about. What really rankled Aniston about the piece was that Jolie felt the need to recount a detailed timeline of exactly how her relationship developed on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, while Aniston was still married to and living with Pitt. “There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening,” says Aniston. “I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss.” Aniston, still galled, shakes her head in disbelief. “That stuff about how she couldn’t wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool.” … There is no doubt that Aniston is noticeably more confident. Even the prospect of turning 40 in February in ageist Hollywood doesn’t seem to faze her. “I’m not saying I’m 40. I’m 30-10. I don’t feel 40. I don’t know what it means. I just know that all of a sudden it’s something that’s in print next to my name. AND NOW SHE’S 40. It almost feels like some sort of badge of honor in a weird way.”

This interview deffo gives a different impression of Jennifer Aniston than we get from seeing mere photos of her. I imagine that it’s not easy to live one’s life like this but, as I always say, it comes with the territory of being a celebrity. I, for one, am glad that she’s finally gone on the record about some of this stuff … it puts things more in context and pushes away some of the conjecture. If you’re still interested, you can click HERE to read the full online version of Jen‘s interview OR you can read the full, unedited (longer) interview in this month’s Vogue.

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