Elizabeth Day: The A-list break-up that nearly broke me 

There are certain seismic world events that you always remember. You can recall where you were when you heard what had happened, often right down to what the weather was like. Like a pebble thrown into a lake, the ripples keep making themselves felt for years to come.

It is in this context that I have recently been considering The Break Up of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. (I feel the capital letters are necessary for emphasis, in much the same way as Victorian novelists would highlight Passages of Importance.) You might think I’m being absurd, placing such weight on a celebrity relationship that ended in 2005, but the couple recently made headlines for taking part in a Zoom table read of the cult 80s movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and snippets of the two of them re-enacting a flirtatious scene had us all in quite a lather.

The fact is, we’re still obsessed with the break-up. And yes, I can remember where I was: in a hire car on holiday in South Africa, when a local radio station I’d tuned in to announced the news with the sort of gravitas more usually reserved for declarations of war.

The impact was immediate because Jennifer Aniston, through her iconic role as Rachel Green in Friends had become shorthand for a lovable kind of everywoman. A hot everywoman with great hair, admittedly. But Rachel, with all her attendant insecurities and romantic difficulties, was relatable to so many of us that we made the error of assuming Jennifer herself was also all of these things. When, in real life, Jennifer married Brad, a bona fide film star and heart-throb, we therefore saw it as the desired happy ending for both the character she played and for Jennifer herself. If Rachel from Friends could be rewarded with this romantic destiny, our reasoning went, then there is hope for the rest of us. We can be likable and neurotic and the right man won’t be put off by this, but will instead be endeared by our quirkiness.

So when Brad decided to have an affair with Angelina Jolie, a woman so otherworldly in her beauty and so intimidating in her sheer physical presence, it instantly imploded the story we’d been telling ourselves. Still, with the passing of time, we acclimatised to this new world order. Brad and Angelina got hitched and adopted 7,893 children (approximately) before going their separate ways. Jennifer continued to build an excellent film and TV career then she, too, got married – then divorced – to actor Justin Theroux. She has never had kids and is one of the few high-profile Hollywood superstars who exists unapologetically as a fully realised woman who also happens not to be a mother.

Brad and Jennifer are rarely seen together, which is why the table read was so thrilling to watch. We were introduced to an alternative universe where our favourite couple had never broken up, where the global pandemic didn’t exist. And the best thing about it was that Jennifer had the upper hand. It was Brad who appeared nervous. It was Brad whose hair needed a wash. It was Brad who seemed in a state of suspended development. And it was Brad who said hello first. ‘Hi, Aniston,’ he said. ‘How you doing?’ At which point Jennifer looked coolly into the camera and said warmly, ‘Good honey, how are you doing?’ The ‘honey’ did it for me: so effortless, so nonchalant, so grown-up. While Brad blushed, Jennifer remained fabulously unperturbed. It is how we all long to be when we run into an ex. I’ll be thinking about it for another 15 years.

This week I’m…