If there’s one thing Jennifer Aniston wants the world to know after her divorce from Justin Theroux it’s this: “I’m not heartbroken.”

Speaking for the first time since her separation to InStyle US, Aniston hit back against the endless tabloid rumour mill that has established a cottage industry trading in stories about her personal life. 

“The misconceptions are ‘Jen can’t keep a man’ and ‘Jen refused to have a baby because she’s selfish and committed to her career.’ Or that I’m sad and heartbroken,” Aniston said in the interview with her close friend Molly McNearney, the head writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live.

“First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken. And second, those are reckless assumptions. No-one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. No-one considers how sensitive that might be for my partner and me. They don’t know what I’ve been through medically or emotionally.” 

“There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they are not, then they’re deemed damaged goods,” she continued. “Maybe my purpose on this planet isn’t to procreate. Maybe I have other things I’m supposed to do?” 

No-one has been through the tabloid ringer like Jennifer Aniston. When she’s not facing a constant barrage of pregnancy-mongering she’s warding off those who think, because both she and her – lying, cheating – ex-husband Brad Pitt happen to be single at the same time they’re going to be getting back together.

This, she admitted to InStyle, is exhausting. “Let’s be honest. I’ve had a moment when I’ve totally wanted to [punch someone]. Yes, but it’s in your fantasy. It’s in your head,” she told the magazine. “I wouldn’t actually go through with it.”

She’s even considered leaving it all behind and fleeing for Europe. “There have been moments when I would just love to get out of Dodge and move to Switzerland – or somewhere – and start anew,” she said. “Just have this shit behind me. Does it really matter? Are we really doing anything? What is my life’s purpose?” 

“Every seven years I try to sum up what I am doing and what I want to make my focus. I’m trying to make better choices. I went through a period of saying yes to projects that I shouldn’t have, but I felt like, ‘How dare I say no?’ Now I’m trying to get better at saying no and to be a part of the projects that actually, really matter…” 

She’s talking about female-led movies like Dumplin’, the long-awaited adaptation of a young adult novel about the overweight daughter of a former beauty queen who enters a pageant of her own. (Aniston is playing the mum to Australian newcomer Danielle Macdonald). Then there’s The Goree Girls, a biopic about one of the first all-female country and western bands in the ‘40s.

These projects are what help Aniston preach the message she’s been forced to preach in Hollywood by sheer virtue of her existence as a successful, empowered, single, childless, happy woman.

Read more: why we all need to STOP feeling sorry for Jennifer Aniston

“Women are picked apart and pitted against one another based on looks and clothing and superficial stuff,” Aniston told InStyle. 

“When a couple breaks up in Hollywood, it’s the woman who is scorned. The woman is left sad and alone. She’s the failure. F that. When was the last time you read about a divorced, childless man referred to as a spinster?”

Hear, hear, Jen. 

Images: Getty