Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in their own words - magnetic love to boredom and betrayal
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were wild about each other before everything came crashing down in 2005...
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When Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt went public in 1999, it only made sense that the owners of the world's best hair would be attracted to each other.
But their romance was about so much more than the physical. In fact, the couple knew they'd found 'The One' from their very first date at Brad's house.
After just five months he got down on one knee, and his fiancée gushed to Rolling Stone: "I’ll just tell you that this is the happiest time of my life — that I’m happier than I’ve ever been."
Despite making a pact to keep their powerful love private, a smitten Brad also couldn't help telling the same magazine he was in love and that is was the 'greatest thing in the world'.
Describing his girlfriend, the Fight Club star - who split up with Gwyneth Paltrow just months before meeting Jen - said: "She's fantastic, she's complicated, she's wise, she's fair, she has great empathy for others... and she's just so cool.
"We're pretty much after the same thing - I'll say that. Just great respect for each other. It's fantastic."
In November 1999 the couple officially announced their engagement with Brad proudly showing off his fiancée's ring on stage at a Sting concert.
And on July 29, 2000 - 20 years ago today - the emotional star broke down as Jen walked down the aisle to meet him in a Malibu cliff top ceremony.
But despite their private happiness, fame didn't sit well with the couple, especially Brad, who became guarded about their marriage.
Sick of the circus, instead of attending glitzy parties, they would spend nights in watching TV and ordering takeaways.
Jen refused to be drawn on rumours they were 'potheads', insisting she enjoyed cannabis 'once in a while', but Brad would later admit he wasted years 'smoking pot' and 'imprisoning' myself.
"I spent the ’90s trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony. It wigged me out a bit," he told Parade in 2011.
"I started to get sick of myself sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic. It became very clear to me that I was so intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn’t living an interesting life myself.
"I think that my marriage had something to do with it... Trying to pretend that the marriage was something that it wasn’t."
Jen also set tongues wagging with her comments about whether Brad was the 'love of her life' in 2003, telling one interviewer: “Is he the love of my life? I think you’re always sort of wondering, ‘Are you the love of my life?’
"I mean, I don’t know, I’ve never been someone who says, ‘He’s the love of my life.’ He’s certainly a big love in my life...”
She also hinted at the stresses and strains of marriage, telling Diana Sawyer: "Love is work. And so you gotta make your choice - if that's what [is] most important to you."
Meanwhile, between Brad's films and Jen's Friends schedule, the couple were trying to keep a hold on the renovation of their £10million Beverly Hills home - a mission that put their marriage to the test.
"It is hard doing a house together," Jen told the Guardian.
"If you make it through that, man, you can make it through anything. And I mean... luckily he was gone for five months of the time and I got to move in and do that. We really probably would have hung each other from trees."
By that point, Friends was wrapping up after 10 years and Jen was looking forward to being able to spend time with her husband on set - and try for a baby. She set the bar at two kids, he wanted seven.
She continued: "It's time. It's time. You know, I think you can work with a baby, I think you can work pregnant, I think you can do all of it. So I'm just truly looking forward to slowing down.
"I'll have finished Friends by end of January, he'll be finishing [Mr and Mrs Smith] at the end of February. Then he starts Ocean's Twelve. So I, thankfully, will be able to go and travel with him while he's doing that."
Sadly, Jen's dreams were shattered when Brad had his head turned by his Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina Jolie.
Rumours of an attraction began to swirl in early 2004 and by the time Friends wrapped that year, Jen said Brad had emotionally checked out.
He didn't attend the final filming of Friends - despite her upset - and reportedly started coming home late and spending more time with Angelina than her.
According to Jen's best friend Courteney Cox, Brad was upfront about his attraction to Angelina.
“There was a connection, and he was honest about that with Jen," she told Vanity Fair.
"Most of the time, when people are attracted to other people, they don’t tell. At least he was honest about it. It was an attraction that he fought for a period of time.”
Pals claimed Brad wanted to figure out who he was and what he wanted away from the marriage, but that Jen wanted to give him the space to do that while staying married.
Admitting there had been problems, the actress explained how she'd wanted to weather the storm but that Brad had other ideas.
“It’s hard; it gets easy; it gets fun again... You re-meet, reconnect. You have marriages within marriages within marriages," she told Vanity Fair.
“That’s not Brad’s view of it. We believe in different things, I guess. You can’t force a relationship, even if it’s your view of how you would like it to be conducted.”
The pair announced their separation in January 2005, insisting there was no-one else involved.
But just two months later, Brad was pictured playing happy families with Angelina and her son Maddox on a beach in Kenya, all but confirming their romance and leaving Jen devastated.
Brad and Ange would go on to have six children together before marrying in 2014 and divorcing just two years later.
Meanwhile, he has remained friends with Jennifer and in 2011 apologised for his comments to Parade which led fans to accuse him of calling Jen 'boring'.
“It grieves me that this was interpreted this way. Jen is an incredibly giving, loving, and hilarious woman who remains my friend," he said in a statement.
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