Forget baseball. Making assumptions about the contents of Jennifer Aniston's womb is America's real pastime. This week, the actress took tabloid journalism to task in a blog post for The Huffington Post. She excoriated these junky magazines for their never-ending obsession with her love life and body (and the most loathsome phrase in the English language, her "baby bump"), particularly with regard to how this coverage negatively affects our perceptions of women in general:
This past month in particular has illuminated for me how much we define a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status. The sheer amount of resources being spent right now by press trying to simply uncover whether or not I am pregnant (for the bajillionth time… but who’s counting) points to the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children. In this last boring news cycle about my personal life there have been mass shootings, wildfires, major decisions by the Supreme Court, an upcoming election, and any number of more newsworthy issues that “journalists” could dedicate their resources towards.
Sure, "bajillionth" is an exaggeration—but is it, though? For well over a decade now, tabloids have been obsessed with declaring the Friends star pregnant at every turn. We've rounded up dozens of she's-having-a-baby! magazine covers that, if true, would mean Jennifer Aniston's kid output would vastly outdo the Duggars.
InTouch, June 2004
InTouch, November 2008
Star, November 2008
Life & Style, March 2009
Star, December 2009
OK, April 2010
OK, July 2010
OK, March 2011
InTouch, August 2011
Star, August 2011
Life & Style, September 2011
Star, January 2012
Star, February 2012
Life & Style, March 2012
Life & Style, April 2012
Star, April 2012
Life & Style, May 2012
OK, September 2012
Star, November 2012
OK, December 2012
InTouch, December 2012
OK, January 2013
OK, February 2013
Star, April 2013
OK, July 2013
InTouch, August 2013
Us Weekly, September 2013
OK, November 2013
Life & Style, March 2014
InTouch, June 2014
OK, September 2014
Life & Style, April 2015
Star, May 2015
OK, September 2015
InTouch, June 2016
Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion's Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.