Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, to John Aniston, a Greek-American actor known for his long-running role on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, and Nancy Dow, also an actress. Her parents divorced when she was nine, and she spent part of her childhood in New York City, attending the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, a school known for producing young performers, before returning to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

After several short-lived television projects in the early 1990s, Aniston was cast as Rachel Green in Friends, which premiered in 1994 and became a defining cultural phenomenon, from her character’s ‘Rachel’ haircut to the show’s enormous global viewership. Aniston and her five co-stars famously negotiated as a unified group during the show’s run, eventually securing equal pay of roughly $1 million per episode by the final seasons, an unusually powerful bargaining position for a television ensemble at the time.

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Following Friends’ conclusion in 2004, Aniston built a substantial film career across comedies including Bruce Almighty (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Marley & Me (2008), Horrible Bosses (2011), and We’re the Millers (2013), while also taking dramatic roles such as Cake (2014), which drew awards-season attention. She returned to television as star and executive producer of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, which premiered in 2019 and became one of the platform’s flagship series, earning her multiple Emmy nominations.

Aniston earns between roughly $25 million and $30 million annually according to industry estimates, an unusually high figure for an actress not currently starring in new blockbuster franchises, driven largely by passive Friends syndication income combined with her Morning Show salary and producing fees. Reports indicate roughly $20 million per year continues to arrive from Friends syndication royalties alone, even though the show stopped filming new episodes in 2004.

The Friends cast’s 2000-era negotiation secured each of the six actors a small percentage of the show’s syndication revenue in perpetuity, a deal that has paid out for more than two decades as the show remained one of the most-watched series in syndication and streaming history. Aniston’s Morning Show salary has been reported in the range of over $1 million per episode, reflecting her dual role as lead actress and executive producer on the series.

Aniston has held a long-running endorsement relationship with skincare brand Aveeno, one of the longest-running celebrity partnerships of its kind, along with past campaigns for Smartwater. These deals have provided a steady, high-value income stream that runs alongside her acting and producing work rather than depending on any single film’s box-office performance.

Aniston launched her own haircare brand, LolaVie, in 2021, moving beyond pure endorsement work into product ownership, and has taken on producing credits across multiple film and television projects, including Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, giving her a financial stake in projects beyond her acting fee alone.

Aniston owns a custom-built estate in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, widely reported to be worth tens of millions of dollars, having sold a previous Beverly Hills property she once shared with ex-husband Brad Pitt. Her real estate holdings have remained a consistent, high-value part of her asset base throughout her post-Friends career.