Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, and grew up in New York City.

She is the daughter of the actor John Aniston and actress Nancy Dow. Aniston has two half-brothers, John Melick and Alex Aniston. Aniston's father is a Greek American born on the island of Crete, Greece, while her mother was born in New York City.

Aniston's godfather was the late actor Telly Savalas, her father's best friend.

Aniston lived in Greece for one year as a child with her family, and they later relocated to New York City. Her father has appeared in the soap operas Days of Our Lives, Love of Life and Search for Tomorrow.

Aniston attended the New York Rudolf Steiner School and graduated from Manhattan's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

Among her high school friends was future gay rights activist Chastity Bono. Aniston's desire to become an actress grew as she worked in Off Broadway productions such as For Dear Life and Dancing on Checker's Grave. During this time, she supported herself with several part-time jobs, including working as a telemarketer and bike messenger. In 1989, she moved to Los Angeles, California.

Aniston moved to Hollywood and was cast in her first television role in 1990, starring as a regular on the short-lived series Molloy and in the TV movie Camp Cucamonga. In 1994, Microsoft invited Aniston, along with comedian Matthew Perry, to shoot a 30-minute promotional advertisement for their new operating system, Windows 95. In addition to her career as a TV actress, Aniston has enjoyed a successful film career. Her biggest box office success to date was her appearance in 2003's Bruce Almighty, in which she played the girlfriend of title character (Jim Carrey); the film grossed $243M at the United States box office and almost twice that worldwide. Aniston's 2004 film, Along Came Polly (opposite Ben Stiller), also did well at the box office after opening at the #1 spot.

Aniston has previously dated musician Adam Duritz, and dated/lived with actor Tate Donovan.

Her high-profile relationship with actor Brad Pitt was frequently publicized in the press. She married Pitt on July 29, 2000, in a lavish Malibu wedding. For years their marriage was considered the rare Hollywood success, however rumors began circulating their relationship was on the rocks when Pitt showed up to his Ocean's 12 premiere without his wife. In early January 2005, the couple was seen vacationing in the Caribbean with her "Friends" co-star Courteney Cox and her husband, actor David Arquette, and photos on the beach showed them kissing and affectionate. They shocked their fans several days later when they announced their separation on January 7, 2005.

Rumors that Pitt had fallen for actress Angelina Jolie began when they were filming the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie and Pitt both denied any claims of adultery, with Jolie declaring in an interview in 2005, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn't be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife."

Pitt and Aniston were seen together publicly after announcing their separation, even at a dinner party for her 36th birthday in February, and friends of the couple had declared they were reconciling.

However, Aniston officially filed for divorce on March 25, 2005 which was finalized on October 2, 2005. Aniston also revealed that her divorce prompted her to reach out to her mother, from whom she was estranged for nearly a decade. They initially became estranged when Nancy talked about her daughter on a TV show and later wrote a book titled From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir (1999).

She has also stated that she was devastated by the death of her longtime therapist, whose work helped to make the separation from Pitt easier.

Summing up her relationship with Pitt, Aniston has said that their relationship, which she does not regret, was "seven very intense years together" and that "it was a beautiful, complicated relationship."

Since the couple's divorce, Aniston has been romantically linked with actor Vince Vaughn. In August 2006, Aniston denied rumors that the two were engaged or that Vaughn had proposed. In October 2006, gossip magazine Us Weekly quoted sources from Vaughn that the couple had broken up. In December 2006, representatives for both Aniston and Vaughn confirmed that they had indeed split up a few weeks before when Aniston visited Vaughn in London.

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