Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler might just have the sweetest friendship in Hollywood. Since becoming friends in the early 90s, the pair have not only starred in multiple films together but become big parts of each other’s lives.
Below, their complete friendship timeline.
1990s
Aniston and Sandler met at a Los Angeles restaurant called Jerry’s Deli back in 1990, when Aniston was dating one of Sandler’s friends.
“We were, like, 14,” Aniston said during a joint appearance with Sandler on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“It was fun. We had breakfast together,” Sandler added.
According to Sandler, it was the complimentary pickles that brought them together.
“She crunched too loud,” Sandler told E! News in 2019. “I knew I was going to be friends with her. I didn’t know I was going to be making movies with her. We both didn’t know that, we were young, and we didn’t have jobs quite then.”
A few years later, both Aniston and Sandler had made it in Hollywood, with Aniston playing Rachel Green in Friends and Sandler becoming a cast member on Saturday Night Live.
“We were friends before Friends,” Aniston told Kimmel. “We love each other. We must have been real family in another life.”
2000s
The pair remained friends throughout the 2000s, with Aniston becoming close friends with Sandler’s wife Jackie Sandler as well.
“He’s such a mensch and you just love each other, he takes you in, and I’m very much the same way,” Aniston told E! News in 2019. “and then you become family. It’s like second nature.”
Sandler added, “And Jen has a family of friends and I have a family of friends, and we all hang.”
The friends spent even more time together while both living in Los Angeles, with the Sandler’s often attending Aniston’s pizza nights.
“We go to Aniston’s house a lot. She makes pizzas, gives us M&Ms, and she has a lot of nice TVs.” Sandler told ScreenSlam. “She hangs out with my wife and all her other friends. I tend to hide.”
“My favourite image [from one of those parties] is when a good song comes on and I look across the room, I see Aniston hear a good song and start dancing. She’s a great little dancer.”
2010s
The pair worked on their first film together in 2011, when they played friends-turned-lovers in the comedy Just Go With It.
They both spoke of their time filming together fondly, with Aniston describing it as “heaven” and “a dream” to ScreenSlam.
“We would wrap, we’d go have dinner together,” Aniston said. “There was this corner we’d call the Magic Corner because the sunset was really beautiful. Then weekends, we’d hang by the pool.”
While Sandler also called the experience a “really nice time”, he had a different pool experience than Aniston.
“Little Miss Adult Pool, I couldn’t bring my kids up there. I would be right about to go in, and then they’d grab me, and they’d say ‘you’re not welcome at this pool with your children,’ and she would hold up this extra, she had makeup give her this extra long middle finger. It was pretty rough,” Sandler laughed.
When Aniston was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Sandler gave a speech about his close friend.
He began by joking about his clothing—something that Aniston often teases him about.
“That’s for you, Aniston,” Sandler said, “nothing but respect, the best T-shirt I had.”
After teasing Aniston about praying as a child to “pray as a child “to have everyone in the entire world be fascinated by her haircut, to one day star in a movie about an evil leprechaun who kills people,” as well as her “Seinfeld money” from Friends, Sandler ended his speech on a heart-warming note.
“I love this girl, my wife loves this girl, the entire world loves this girl… the girl who put the grace in ‘Office Space,’ put the jolly in Along Came Polly, put the ‘hor’ in Horrible Bosses, put the good girl in The Good Girl and took her naked boobs out of Wanderlust. For God’s sake, let the girl have one thing she can keep to herself, you greedy bastards out there.”
In 2019, Aniston and Sandler joined forces again, in the 2019 Netflix Comedy Murder Mystery.
Sandler spoke about the film on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, when he revealed that they all went to George Clooney’s house on Lake Como for a pizza party while filming. For this reason, he believes his wife wishes she was married to Aniston.
“Every time we’re with Jennifer, something great happens,” Sandler said. “I should do it more, and Aniston will say to me in the middle of the night whenever I’m with her, something cool, she’ll be like, ‘you see?’ and I’ll be like ‘no you’re right, this is great
“The next morning she’ll text and say, ‘I know something of Wednesday night, if you want,’ and I’ll be like ‘we just did that Saturday thing, we don’t have to do two.'”
During the same appearance, Aniston joked about the outfit Sandler chose to wear to Clooney’s house.
“Adam doesn’t have, really, a great wardrobe. But he didn’t care, that’s his thing,” Aniston told Ellen. “Jackie, his beautiful wife, always dresses gorgeous… and the way he dressed [a pair of basketball] shorts up was he had a kind of turquoise velour Izod shirt.”
However, she also explained that Sandler and his wife’s style differences don’t make a difference to their relationship.
“It works,” Aniston said. “I was at their wedding, and they never stopped being madly in love with each other. It just goes to show you don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Later that year, Aniston won a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in Drama for The Morning Show. After thanking her friends and colleagues, Aniston also thanked Sandler, saying “Oh, Adam Sandler! Your performance is extraordinary and your magic is real, buddy, I love you.”
On Instagram, Sandler posted a picture of Aniston, with the caption “Congrats to the great @jenniferaniston for her SAG award and her just being the best.”
2020s
Aniston and Sandler worked together again in 2022, when they made Murder Mystery 2. At the film’s premiere in 2023, Sandler showed up in a hoodie, khaki pants and sneakers.
When Aniston, who was wearing a sparkling mini dress saw Sandler, she yelled “What the hell are you doing?” before telling Entertainment Tonight, “I’m not standing next to him. Sweatpants.”
“You said it, you texted me, ‘Please wear your sweatshirt,'” Sandler yelled.
“I said, ‘Please don’t wear your sweatshirt!” Aniston sighed.
In August 2023, Aniston revealed that after hearing about her fertility struggles, Sandler and Jackie now send her flowers every Mother’s Day.
