Jennifer Aniston was asked to lose weight if she wanted to stay on ‘Friends’

Hollywood’s leading lady Jennifer Aniston has been reigning over the industry for decades now, courtesy of her iconic role on the sitcom, Friends.

While the show catapulted her to great heights of fame, the role almost slipped away from Aniston’s hands owing to the makers’ insistence on her losing weight.

The revelation was made by Saul Austerlitz’s book Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show that Defined a Television Era.

“She had to lose thirty pounds if she wanted to stay in Hollywood. Los Angeles was a tough place to be an actress — it was a tough place to be a woman — and Jennifer Aniston's agent was reluctantly leveling with her,” wrote Austerlitz.

With her father already being a soap opera star, Aniston was familiar with how tough the industry can get.

"Aniston was hardly fat — everyone could see she was beautiful — but as the show she would one day become indelibly associated with later made a point of noting, the camera added ten pounds," the author claimed.

During an earlier interview in 1996 with the Rolling Stone, Aniston too had opened up about her struggle with weight loss: "I ate too many mayonnaise sandwiches. Mayonnaise on white bread –— the most delicious thing in the world.”

"My agent gave it to me straight. Nicest thing he ever did…. The disgusting thing of Hollywood — I wasn't getting lots of jobs 'cause I was too heavy. I was like, 'What?!' But my diet was terrible. Milk shakes and French fries with gravy,” she recalled.

"It was a good thing to start paying attention,” she added.