Friends star Jennifer Aniston nearly became a cast member on Saturday Night Live but turned it down because, as she put it, “I always thought I was such hot s–t.”
Aniston told the story to Dax Shepard on a new episode of his Armchair Expert podcast. “Honestly, today I’d have to ask Lorne, because I remember, I was in New York City, and I had a meeting with Lorne Michaels” to talk about joining the show, she said, but she turned him down, telling the show boss, “‘I don’t know if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show. It’s very male-dominated,’” she recalled, also remembering that she ran into Adam Sandler and David Spade right outside the office.
She defiantly told Michaels at the time, “‘I would love to be here if it was in the Gilda Radner day.’” Aniston was cast as Rachel Green on Friends not long after that meeting, she said, but she still can’t believe she had the guts to turn down the gig. “I don’t know why I had this self-righteous attitude,” she said, “I always thought I was such hot s–t.”
Aniston previously discussed her brush with SNL 2021, when she told The Hollywood Reporter, “I mean, it was such a boys’ club back then, but who the f— was I to be saying this to Lorne Michaels?! So yes, adorably that happened and I’ve hosted Saturday Night Live a couple of times, and I love it so much.”
Aniston hosted the show in 1999 and 2004.
She also opened up about her fertility struggles on Armchair Expert, revealing that she’d never considered adoption because, “I want my own DNA in a little person. That’s the only way, selfish or not, whatever that is, I’ve wanted it.”
Though it never worked out for the actress, she’s at “peace” about the choices she’s made. Aniston told Allure in 2022, she has “zero regrets.”
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