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Jennifer Aniston’s Instagram debut crashes social-media platform

Friends selfie attracts 8.3m likes and 6.5m followers for Hollywood star in first day

Instagram: Jennifer Aniston’s first post was a selfie with her Friends costars

Wed Oct 16 2019 - 08:57

Jennifer Aniston's first Instagram post temporarily crashed the platform yesterday. The actor, who had insisted she would never have a social-media account, posted a recent photograph of herself with her Friends costars Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry. Alongside the selfie she wrote: "And now we're Instagram FRIENDS too. HI INSTAGRAM."

In less than an hour Aniston had more than 120,000 followers, and her first post had been liked more than 270,000 times. By this morning, once Instagram had resolved the problem that had stopped her page loading for some users, she had 6.5 million followers and more than 8.3 million likes for her Friends selfie. She also posted her first Instagram story, which features Witherspoon, Schwimmer, Dolly Parton, LeBlanc, Cox and Amy Sedaris.

One of the first replies to Aniston's post was from her Morning Show costar Reese Witherspoon, who wrote: "YASSSS!!! Welcome to Insta Jen!!!"

Their fellow actor Demi Moore welcomed Aniston to the social-media platform on her own page, sharing a picture of the two of them together and writing: "WELCOME to Instagram jenniferaniston!"

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Fans of the star were thrilled to see her online, with many commenting “finally” in response to her joining the platform. Others speculated about a possible Friends reunion, either with a TV reboot or a big-screen release, on seeing the six sitcom cast members back together just weeks after the programme’s 25th anniversary.

The 50-year-old actor was 25 when she began to play Rachel Green on the hit sitcom, which ran for 10 seasons. This month Aniston dismissed the possibility of a Friends movie. “Our producers wouldn’t want it, wouldn’t let us,” she said. “It would have been fun. But whatever. Maybe it’s better this way, but we’ll never know.”

Aniston is following 110 people on Instagram, including her ex-husband Justin Theroux, who responded to her post with “Woot-Woot! #first”.

The Hollywood star had long said she would not use social media, and earlier this year she told Elle magazine: “The one thing I have is maintaining this little circle of sanctity that’s my own. If I’m sitting here posting something about my dogs or I’m Boomeranging my coffee mug in the morning, that’s just giving away one more piece of something that is mine.”

But she appears to have had a change of heart, and in an interview with ET Online this week she said: “What you resist, persists. It’s something that is a part of our world now, and it’s not going away.” – PA, Guardian

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