Los Angeles: Jennifer Aniston, Hollywood’s favourite girl- next-door, is in the headlines again.
The former Friends star has apparently put the misery of her split from Brad Pitt behind her – to find comfort in the arms of rising funnyman Vince Vaughn, the star of Wedding Crashers.
People Magazine reported on Thursday that the love-struck couple had spent a romantic few days last week visiting Vaughn’s hometown of Chicago where they took long lakefront walks, met Vaughn’s parents and visited his favourite restaurants.
Capping the report was the headline “Hot New Romance – it’s official. Jen and Vince are a couple!”, and pictures of them tenderly kissing and canoodling in the city’s nightclubs and restaurants.
“I definitely think there’s a romance going on there,” said People’s Larry Hackett. “These are two people who feel it’s OK to be out in public and showing their affection.”
Aniston’s many fans and well wishers will be hoping that she has now found true love following the torrid end of her much-watched marriage to Pitt – a repeat winner of People’s sexiest man in the world accolade.
The couple had been widely regarded as the most glamourous pairing in Hollywood – and by extension the world – when they got married in 2000. They lived a dream lifestyle, but rumours began circulating last year that the Hollywood hunk was starting to feel unfulfilled.
They announced their divorce earlier this year amid stridently- denied rumours that Pitt’s heart had wandered to Angelina Jolie, who coincidentally topped People’s list of the world’s sexiest women.
Insiders hinted that it was not a question of beauty that had caused Pitt to fall in love with Jolie when they starred together in the action comedy Mr. and Mrs Smith.
Rather it was the actress’ commitment to humanitarian causes – she’s a UN goodwill ambassador – and her love of children, including her own adopted son Maddox, whom she rescued from a Cambodian orphanage. Being the loser of a love triangle is never easy to overcome. But for a beautiful Hollywood actress, the pain of being publicly ditched for a woman seen as more beautiful, caring and accomplished must have been devastating and Aniston told Vanity Fair magazine she was heartbroken over the split.
At first Pitt and Jolie denied their relationship. Jolie even insisted that she would never have done anything to break up a marriage.
But gradually it became clear that the two were more than just friends. The pair even went together earlier this year to Ethiopia where Jolie adopted a baby girl she named Zahara, who was suffering from malnutrition. Other reports said that the two kids had taken to calling Pitt Daddy.
But Aniston was not sulking. She moved out of the Malibu house she shared with Pitt and which they put up for sale for 28 million dollars this month. She threw herself into charity work and also into her acting, starring with Vaughn in a movie ironically called The Break Up.
Completing the soap-opera circle was the fact that Vaughn had a first hand view of the Aniston-Pitt breakup: he also starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
However, the pair denied they were anything but good friends.
“Nothing wrong with having pretty girls around, always makes the day go faster,” Vaughn quipped.
Aniston last month said on The Oprah Winfrey Show that she was ready to date again, but in response to Winfrey’s query about Vaughn, Aniston responded, “Oh, Oprah!”
Now the secret is well and truly out and Hollywood’s star watchers have two new glamour couples to drool over. The only problem might be the nicknames: Pitt and Aniston were known as “Bennifer”, while Pitt and Jolie are known as “Brangelina”. One can only hope that Vaughn and Aniston will not be called Vinnifer – that might turn the whole relationship sour.     – dpa

Last update on: 22-10-2005