"I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don't see it as me, but as someone painted, fluffed, puffed and done up"
About this Quote
The language is backstage-specific and tactile: “painted, fluffed, puffed.” Those verbs drag the glossy fantasy back into the labor of fabrication, reminding you that desire is often a production pipeline. It’s also a quiet critique of how celebrity culture turns women into surfaces. The magazine cover isn’t “me,” it’s a constructed character - and the construction is so thorough it becomes estranging. You can hear the dissonance between the private person and the public artifact.
Context matters: Aniston’s fame peaked in an era when tabloids and entertainment media treated actresses as both aspirational brands and communal property, dissecting bodies, relationships, and aging with casual entitlement. Her tone avoids outrage; it’s weary clarity. The subtext is boundary-setting: if the world insists on consuming a perfected image, she’s going to insist it’s not a confession of her inner life. The quote works because it tells the truth about glamour without killing the fantasy - it just relocates it, from “natural allure” to “carefully lit performance,” and asks why we keep pretending otherwise.
Quote Details
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Aniston, Jennifer. (2026, January 15). I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don't see it as me, but as someone painted, fluffed, puffed and done up. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-dont-know-what-it-means-to-be-a-sex-symbol-when-62352/
Chicago Style
Aniston, Jennifer. "I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don't see it as me, but as someone painted, fluffed, puffed and done up." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-dont-know-what-it-means-to-be-a-sex-symbol-when-62352/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I don't know what it means to be a sex symbol. When I look myself on a magazine cover I don't see it as me, but as someone painted, fluffed, puffed and done up." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-dont-know-what-it-means-to-be-a-sex-symbol-when-62352/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




