Jennifer Aniston's strained childhood was the making of the Friends and The Break-Up star

Jennifer Aniston appears to have led a charmed life with TV show 'Friends' and film success making her one of the wealthiest actresses in the world. But her childhood home life was strained.

Aniston has learned the value of forgiveness after a difficult home life that saw her parents divorce when she was 10. She has alluded to the difficult time she had as a child in award acceptance speeches and was estranged from both parents at some point in her life.

Her father, John Aniston, died on Friday, November 11, an actor held in high esteem like his daughter; he won the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. He played the role of Victor Kiriakis in 'Days of Our Lives' from July 1985 for more than three decades.

Jennifer announced that her father died at the age of 89. "You were one of the most beautiful humans I ever knew," she captioned her Instagram post in part. "I'll love you till the end of time."

Aniston’s mother, the actress Nancy Dow, was best known for her role as Athena in 1966’s The Beverley Hillbillies and Tersa in 1967’s The Wild Wild West.

Jennifer recalls going to a birthday party of a friend when she was nine years old and when she returned her mother said that her father had gone away for a while. Her father didn’t make contact with Jennifer for a year, before he finally got in touch.

Jennifer spoke about the incident in 1999 in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying it was the most 'painful' time of her life, before she reconciled with her father.

“He just called one day and said, ‘Let’s go see The Fantastickes.’

“So we had a little dinner and saw the show. After that, I started seeing him on weekends, and this new way of life just unfolded.”

Jennifer said she was desperate to please him so he wouldn't leave her again and that she asked him why he left.

“Like I said, he’s not a good communicator. Maybe if my parents had talked more. There were signs, but also, knowing my father, he probably didn’t say anything.

“But, as best he could, my dad explained and apologised, and it’s enough. We’ve made up. There’s still parts that are hard for me, but I’m an adult. I can’t blame my parents anymore.”

Aniston also was estranged from her hard-to-please mother, Nancy, for several years. She wasn’t invited to her daughter’s first marriage to the actor Brad Pitt in 2000.

“She was a model and she was all about presentation and what she looked like and what I looked like," Aniston told The Sunday Telegraph of Nancy. "I did not come out the model child she'd hoped for and it was something that really resonated with me, this little girl just wanting to be seen and wanting to be loved by a mum who was too occupied with things that didn't quite matter.”

Jennifer was reconciled with her mother after her break-up to Brad and the mother and daughter saw each other just two weeks before Nancy’s death in 2016. It was Jennifer’s first visit to see her mother in five years, after Nancy wrote a tell-all book.

Her father's passing comes after Jennifer spoke about the pain of her parents' divorce and forgiving both her mother and father later in life.

Speaking to Allure, she said: 'I think my mom’s divorce really screwed her up.'

After years of reflection, she's now able to see some of the limitations someone from her mother's generation had to go through.

“Back in that generation it wasn’t like, ‘Go to therapy, talk to somebody. Why don't you start micro-dosing?’ You're going through life and picking up your child with tears on your face and you don't have any help,” she added, in an apparent reference to her mother's situation.

“I forgave my mom. I forgave my father. I've forgiven my family,” Jennifer said.

Both her parents went on to re-marry and have a son. Jennifer has two half-brothers, Alex and John.

The Friends star, who played Rachel Green for 10 series, from 1994 until 2004, said she now knows herself how 'important' it is to let go of hurtful moments wrapped up in resentment.

She said: “It's toxic to have that resentment, that anger. I learned that by watching my mom never let go of it.”

Aniston’s accolades include a Golden Globe for her role in Friends, as well as six other Golden Globes for various roles, seven Primetime Emmy Awards and 11 Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Jennifer has certainly spun her difficult childhood into Hollywood gold. The gifted comic genius of Jennifer is no doubt from entertaining two warring parents, a silver lining if ever there was.