Why Jennifer Aniston Dumped Her BFF Chelsea Handler (& What Brangelina Had To Do With It)

Jennifer Aniston may have gotten her fame from being a friend, but that certainly hasn't stopped her from letting some besties go. The "Friends" alum was once attached at the hip to Chelsea Handler, but according to sources, Aniston has distanced herself from the comedian. An insider confirmed to RadarOnline.com that Aniston "soft ghosted" Handler due to her consistently brazen accounts of the actor's private life. "The bottom line is that it was always a show business friendship, nothing more," claimed the source.

The pair first hit it off when Aniston appeared on a 2009 episode of Handler's hit cable show "Chelsea Lately." The women reportedly bonded over their mutual animosity toward Angelina Jolie, who is infamously speculated to be the reason why Brad Pitt and Aniston divorced. Jolie and Pitt met on the set of the 2005 film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," which came out the same year Pitt and Aniston split. It wasn't too long until Brangelina came to be.

But where Aniston has moved on, Handler seems to keep baring ill will. In 2016, after it was revealed that Pitt and Jolie called it quits, Handler had some harsh words for the "Girl Interrupted" star, calling her a "f**king lunatic" on her Netflix series "Chelsea." What Handler may have seen as a fervent defense of her BFF might've been too much for Aniston.

Chelsea Handler's public animosity towards Angelina Jolie wasn't the only friendship flaw for Jennifer Aniston. According to a source who spoke with the Daily Mail, Aniston's second husband, Justin Theroux, whom she married in 2015, wasn't such a fan of the comedian. They claimed that Theroux thought Handler was "rude and obnoxious" and that she would push Aniston to "act like she's single." Handler's constant publicity stunts became a concern for Aniston when she was separating from Theroux in 2017. According to the insider, the actor worried about people close to her leaking private information. "Chelsea was still talking about Jennifer in interviews, and Jennifer automatically pointed the finger at her," claimed the source. 

However, according to Handler, her feud with Aniston is just gossip. "Don't read those magazines! Don't believe any of it!" she said on the Australian talk show "The Project" in 2019 (via Us Weekly). "We're friends. Don't worry ... I love Jen." The "Murder Mystery" star has yet to comment on the speculations, but considering that rumors about Aniston have plagued the actor for eternity, there is reason not to take the feud talk to heart.