I’m curious about what this week’s US tabloids will look like. You’ll recall, when I wrote about Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux’s breakup timeline last week, announcing their separation on a Thursday gave the “gossip industry”, and all the gossip magazines, enough time to get it into their new issues, maybe even on the front covers, even though it’s a long weekend in America. 

Like I said, the rollout and the timing of the breakup confirmation seemed weird to me and still does. Especially since there seems to be a New York version of what happened and a Hollywood version. There’s been a lot of reporting so far about Justin Theroux’s New York “edginess”, which is as much of an eyeroll as Jen’s beachy ocean organic “laid back”-ness. So far, the major factor that has emerged about the breakup is that it was a push-pull between coasts. She wanted them to be based in LA and he didn’t want to leave New York. 

PEOPLE this morning published a new article about how Jen and Justin had “issues even before tying the knot”. This is hilarious to me because just a week ago, PEOPLE posted an article about how great their married life was, with a source telling the magazine that they “have figured out a life that works for them”. Now PEOPLE’s sources have evidently revised their assessments: 

The source close to the pair says that Aniston and Theroux each preferred different coasts, a major source of continued discord for the pair.

“Ever since they became serious, the living issue often made them bicker. It was always hard for Jen to understand why Justin didn’t like, or at least could learn to like L.A., when she was in L.A.,” the source says.

For a long time, the couple — who dated for more than four years before marrying in 2015 — accommodated each other, with Theroux spending more and more time on his own in New York City. “With Jen feeling so strongly about living in L.A. and disliking N.Y.C. so much, she wanted Justin to be happy and that’s why she agreed that he should spend so much time in N.Y.C.,” says the insider.

Still the source adds that “one wonders why they got married in the first place” because “nothing really changed” after the pair tied the knot in a surprise backyard birthday party-turned-wedding ceremony on August 5, 2015, a few days before Theroux turned 44, followed by a honeymoon in Bora Bora with friends such as Courteney Cox, Jimmy Kimmel and Jason Bateman along for the trip.

Getting married “never seemed that important” to them, says the source. “When they finally did start to plan it seriously, it was more like ‘Let’s have a great party with all of our friends and go on a fun trip.’ ” Still, “they had the same issues before they got married as caused them to split.”

Well, sh-t. Now we have to go there. “One wonders why they even got married in the first place”? 

Jen and Justin were married August 2015. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were married in August 2014. If “one (is wondering) why they even got married in the first place”, is that one of the possible reasons we can hypothesise? These three have been playing the tit-for-tat game for almost 15 years. For a while there, Justin Theroux seemed down to play too. So when his “arty” and “edgy” New York friends are supposedly running to Page Six talking about how Hollywood just wasn’t his thing because he’s too New York for that sh-t, show them that photo of the two of them photographed in Santa Fe, New Mexico showing off their engagement ring, and ask them to point out where there’s a gun to his head forcing him to participate. 

Justin Theroux and Jennifer Aniston are seen October 6, 2012 in Santa Fe, New Mexico

He participated. And he showed up to participate. And he got a lot out of his participation. Go look at his IMDb and see how his career picked up after they started dating. And now, apparently, he’s changed his mind because he’s not about that Hollywood life? Sure. 

TMZ says there’s no evidence of a marriage certificate and that, while it’s possible that Jen and Justin’s is confidential, it’s unlikely that they would have gotten one in LA County. So now there’s a conspiracy theory out there that they never made it legal. Which is why no divorce lawyers have been retained so far. One conspiracy theory leads to another. Like, if it wasn’t legal, was it even legit? 

For the record, I think it was legit. But was it amicable?