Jen's Heartbreak & Healing Therapy Saved My Life

She’s bounced back from a devastating year

- Isley Kasica Zegas

When Jennifer Aniston came across the script for her new movie Dumplin’, she knew she needed to play the part of Rosie, a former Texas beauty queen navigating a very complicated relationship with her daughter.

“It really resonated,” the actress confesses. “It was about this little girl wanting to be seen and wanting to be loved, and a mom who was too occupied with the things that didn’t quite matter because she didn’t know any better.”

It’s a mother-daughter dynamic Jennifer knows far too well. For much of her life, the 49-year-old had an extremely complex and difficult relationship with her own mum, former actress and model Nancy Dow.

“She was very critical of me,” Jennifer recalls of Nancy, who died at age 79 in 2016, after a long illness and a series of strokes. “Because she was a model, she was gorgeous – stunning! I wasn’t. I never was. She was also very unforgiving. She would hold grudges that I just found so petty.”