Jennifer Aniston, from rock to hard place

It's hip to be sick of Jennifer Aniston.

Not only is celebrity gossip not an especially esteemed pursuit, but "Friends" has taken such a short time to come to stand for "comedy not ironic enough to laugh at" that it's remarkable it lasted so long, given that apparently, no one liked it. Just like no one cares about Jennifer Aniston.

And yet, there she is. She's on the cover of GQ, she's in the paper settling her divorce, she's on The Smoking Gun suing a photographer for taking nude pictures of her sunbathing at home, and she's commenting frequently on the apparent farce that her personal life has become.

It didn't used to be like this. Aniston and Brad Pitt were such a pretty couple. He had been seen for so long with Gwyneth Paltrow that it was a relief to see him with Aniston, who looked a little warmer — less regal, more amusing.

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When their marriage ended, it was a sad Hollywood breakup of the kind that occur maybe five times a year and fall into the category of "major." Publicists issue statements. Best wishes are usually exchanged. Readers of People and Us say, "Huh. They always seemed happy."

It was not the breakup that turned Aniston's life into theater of the absurd — it was Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Jolie was already a glamorously strange icon, known for her unconventional marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, her stormy relationship with father Jon Voigt and her zealous affection for her brother. She's also probably the last person you would want to see enter your ex's personal life: You know drama will follow.

Image rehab
For months, Pitt and Jolie either didn't talk about their relationship or outright denied it. Aniston, meanwhile, began to regroup and prepared to mount one of the most ambitious image-rehabilitation campaigns in history.

The message began to thrum across the wires from the Aniston camp: Jennifer, subjected to the craziness surrounding her husband's interest in Angelina, threatened by the media typhoon they created, was only trying to get through her divorce with dignity. No bitterness (except the occasional remark about Pitt's hair), no grudges, just moving on with her life. It must be true: She told it to Oprah.

Things became more complicated when Pitt and Jolie began to be photographed together with the young children she had adopted during her international humanitarian travels. It had always been part of the Pitt/Aniston breakup lore, dating back to long before they actually broke up, that he wanted kids and she either couldn't get pregnant or didn't want to.

It is around this part of the story that a sane person begins to wonder how any of us could have believed that this was any of our business.

Then there was Vince Vaughn. First there were rumblings, then there were rumors, then there were pictures from their visit to his hometown. Then, finally, there was acknowledgment. Aniston had a new boyfriend, and she had chosen someone almost as odd as Angelina Jolie.

The way things have settled out, Aniston and Vaughn are certainly followed by the paparazzi, but they are nothing compared to the Jolie-Pitt spectacle. The latter couple did the former several favors in taking the heat off.

First, it was announced that Pitt would adopt Jolie's children. This came less than a year after the announcement of the end of Pitt and Aniston's marriage, and only a month or two after the divorce was final. Then Jolie turned up pregnant, driving the relevant publicists to announce for the first time that indeed, the couple was a couple, and this would be their child together.

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