Jennifer Aniston opens up about Brad Pitt’s divorce

Jennifer Aniston memorably joined Ellen for her final dance.

Jennifer Aniston had Ellen Degeneres audiences in suspense after she mocked her high-profile divorce from Brad Pitt on Thursday’s The Ellen Degeneres Show finale. The 53-year-old actress kicked off her spot by appropriately slow dancing to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” with pal DeGeneres. Aniston then dropped the divorce bombshell after the 64-year-old comedian asked how she coped with the 2004 “Friends” finale.

“Well, I got divorced and went to therapy,” Aniston quipped, laughing. “And then I did a movie called ‘The Break-Up.'”

She was referring to her highly publicized split from Brad Pitt in 2005, after the celebrity couple had been married for four and a half years. Their marriage reportedly ended on ugly terms after Pitt, 58, allegedly cheated on JA with actress Angelina Jolie, with whom he is now embroiled in a heated custody battle following a split.

Thankfully, Aniston seems to be taking the divorce with ease. “I just leaned into the ending,” the Just Go With It star told DeGeneres. “I was like, ‘You know what guys, let’s just make a whole new chapter out of this. Let’s just end it all and start over.”

Apparently, the two former flames are “still friends,” according to an inside source, who claimed they “talk and have a nice, friendly, warm relationship,” ET reported online.

Meanwhile, on a 2021 episode of The Howard Stern Show, Aniston had claimed that “Brad and I are buddies.” She added that despite her tumultuous history, there are “no oddities” between her and the “Benjamin Button” star.

The ex-couple had also previously reunited backstage at the 2020 SAG Awards and performed a virtual tabletop reading for Fast Times at Ridgemont that same year.

Aniston’s appearance in the Ellen finale was particularly fitting given that she was the first guest on the set when the talk show premiered in 2003. The sitcom star has since appeared on the program a whopping 20 times over its 19 seasons.

As Aniston joked during the finale, “I was on your show more than you were on the air.”

Arguably the most moving part of the show, which also featured musical guests Billie Eilish and P!nk, was the tearful closing monologue.

Degeneres took the stage to a standing ovation from the crowd, which included her 14-year-old wife, Portia De Rossie, USA Today reported.

We’ve included the tearful farewell speech in its entirety below:

“Welcome to our very last show. I walked out here 19 years ago saying this is the beginning of a relationship. And today is not the end of a relationship. It’s more of a short break. It’s a ‘You can watch other talk shows now. And maybe every now and then I see a different audience.”

“When we tried to sell the show twenty years ago, no one thought it would work. Not because it was a different kind of show, but because I was different. Very few broadcasters wanted to buy the show and now 20 years later we are celebrating this amazing journey together.”

“When we started this show, I couldn’t say ‘gay’ on the show… I said it a lot at home. ‘What do we have for our gay breakfast?’ Or: ‘Give the gay salt.’ “Has anyone seen the gay remote control?” Stuff like that, but we couldn’t say ‘gay’. I couldn’t say “we” because that implied I was dating someone. Sure I couldn’t say ‘wife’ because it wasn’t legal for gay people to get married and now I say ‘wife’ all the time.”

“Twenty-five years ago they shut down my sitcom because they didn’t want a lesbian prime time show once a week. And I said, ‘Okay, then I’ll be there every day during the day. How about that?’ What a beautiful, beautiful journey we made together. And if this show made you smile, if it lifted you up, if you’re going through a period of pain, sadness, or anything you’re going through, then I’ve done my job.

“Thanks to this platform, we’ve been able to change people’s lives, and this show changed my life forever. It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had, beyond my wildest imagination. So tWitch, one last time dance with me.”

DeGeneres and her co-executive producer and collaborator Stephen “tWitch” Boss ended the monologue by dancing to The Emotions’ “Best of My Love.”