Did Gwyneth Paltrow cast a shadow on Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt's relationship even after breaking up with him?
A year after Gwyneth Paltrow had broken up with fiance Brad Pitt back in 1998, she was still not over her breakup. It was reported when the actor started dating Jennifer Aniston, the Goop founder's shadow loomed over their relationship.
The 'Iron Man' actress dated Pitt for two-and-a-half years and even got engaged to him before calling off their relationship in 1997. Although she maintained that she was the one who called off the relationship. In an interview with Diane Sawyer in 2006, Paltrow said that she was heartbroken for five years following the split and could not concentrate on work.
"I was very upset for a long, long time," she said, Mirror reported, adding that she eventually managed to work past it. "We're able to sort of see each other and smile and wish each other well."
While she was nursing a heartbreak, a year after his breakup, the 'Once Upon a Time In Hollywood' actor was set up on a blind date by friends with Aniston, who was getting over her breakup with actor Tate Donovan. They hit it off so well that five months later, they were engaged.
The news of her ex's engagement was tough to handle for Paltrow and the rumor has it that Pitt and Aniston's relationship now seems to be dealing with the 'Gwyneth Problem.' The phrase (Gwyneth Problem) popularised by media reports implies that Gwyneth Paltrow was still casting a shadow over Brad Pitt and Jeniffer Aniston's relationship when the pair starting dating. The 'Friends' actress, however, rubbished the rumors claiming that both she and Pitt were over their respective exes and that Paltrow was not an obstacle to their budding relationship.
"Gwyneth is a lovely person," she told Vanity Fair in 2001. "But I didn't worry about their past relationship. Once this began, those previous relationships were done."
When Pitt and Aniston announced that they were getting a divorce after the former took a shining to his 'Mr and Mrs Smith' costar Angelina Jolie at the time, Paltrow weighed in on the split in a TIME magazine interview, where she said that the estranged couple could have minimized the damage by not being so public about their relationship.
"It would have been a lot easier on Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston now if they had not talked to the press about each other and everything to begin with," she told the outlet.
She drew from her own life experience of marrying Coldplay frontman Chris Martin."I learned my lesson at 24," she said. "Our marriage is between us. If we decide to continue being together or not, it's our business."
After years of reflecting back on her past and learning from it, Paltrow, who is now married to Glee co-creator Brad Falchuck, admitted on 'The Howard Stern Show' in 2015 that she got cold feet when Pitt proposed to her in December 1997 as she thought that 25 was simply a very young age to settle down.
“I think I was a kid and I wasn't ready. He was too good for me,” Paltrow said. “I honestly do think, I was too young and didn't know what I was doing."
Incidentally, all the bitterness is now behind them and both Paltrow and Aniston have become good friends in recent years. Paltrow, along with Pitt, also attended Aniston's 50th birthday party last year.