From the outside, it certainly looks like Jennifer Aniston has it all. One of the world’s most famous TV show actresses is gorgeous, famous, and rich. But while she is certainly a shining example of all those qualities, her story hasn’t always been sunshine and roses. When you look deeper, Aniston’s past is quite tragic, and you’ll learn that the star is no stranger to failure. Still, she was resilient and kept going, even after starring in four failed television shows before making it big on “Friends.” Today, Aniston has flourished in show business for around 40 years and is still going strong, but what about the moments of sorrow in her life that nobody talks about? 

Her underwater fear stems from a childhood accident

Aniston can never remain underwater because she drove a tricycle into a swimming pool as a five-year-old child and never let go. Sinking to the bottom, one of her brothers saved her life and pulled her out, but the trauma remains with her as an adult. Her toughest role to date was the 2014 movie “Cake,” which required her to undergo water therapy.

As a child, she felt unsafe

As great as her life as an adult is, her childhood was filled with problems between her actor parents. She described her childhood as “destabilized” and often saw her parents being unkind to each other in their rollercoaster of a relationship. After that, she vowed to break the pattern and not repeat the behavior in her own life. 

Her parents’ traumatic divorce impacted her love life

When she was only nine, Aniston returned from a friend’s birthday and discovered that her father had left them. Her mother told her immediately, rather than sitting her down and bracing her for the conversation. The sudden exit of her dad was traumatizing for Aniston, who also had to live with the fact that he was already in a new relationship.  

Her mother always judged her 

Aniston’s mother, Nancy Dow, set high expectations of her daughter and always focused on her appearance. She also happened to have a temper and would tend to hold grudges over the most minor things. From her mother, Jen learned what not to do.

Her mom wrote a tell-all book that made them estranged

The dynamic between Down and Aniston turned into a rift in 1999 when her mother wrote “From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir” to make her daughter’s fame her own. Aniston felt blindsided and betrayed, and the two never quite got over the trust issues. They didn’t talk for a decade, and Dow wasn’t invited to her 2004 wedding to Brad Pitt.