Sure, the ultimate Girl Next Door actually lives next to a permanent colony of paparazzi, and yeah, the relationship thing hasn’t exactly been a fairy tale. But Jennifer Aniston is in control (does that look like a body under duress?), overhauling her image (she’s ready to play a cougar!), and getting what she needs from a notorious swordsman eight years her junior (not that there’s anything wrong with that)
By Mark Kirby

It’s a sunny afternoon in late October, and Jennifer Aniston and I are having lunch inside the bright, modern Beverly Hills home she uses as an office, talking about the 24/7 unscripted drama—call it The Jen Show—whose mobile production unit is parked right out front. Arriving for our meeting, I’d watched three paparazzi SUVs speed by, rip some Grand Theft Auto–style doughnuts in the street, and station their vehicles facing downhill, positioned for pursuit. There seem to be about a half-dozen paps outside—a slow day on the set. Last week’s episode, “The One Where Jen and John Mayer Get Back Together,” drew twenty men who trailed her constantly, jockeying for those exclusive photos of the couple that have fetched as much as $20,000. Today’s crew are just staffers, guys who stalk Aniston full-time for photo agencies like X17.

“Yesterday I pulled up to one truck and rolled down my window,” she says, leaning in. “I go, ‘Let me just ask, this is every day? Every day now? Is there a way we could make this a little bit saner?’ It’s just not human to walk around with twenty cars following you—there’s no ease. Maybe they do want you to get all Mariah Carey on yourself and be put into an institution. I miss the days when they hid in the bushes.”

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