Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend reveals lie he told to hide medical condition
Jim Curtis has opened up about the long journey towards accepting the spinal cord condition that caused chronic nerve damage and partial paralysis in his 20s.
Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend Jim Curtis once lied about suffering a motorcycle accident because he felt “shameful” about a medical condition that left him partially paralysed.
Former Friends actress Jennifer, 57, joined Jim, 50, for a rare public appearance at New York City’s 92nd Street Y on Wednesday (02.09.26), where she interviewed the hypnotist and life coach ahead of the release of his new book, The Book of Possibility.
Jim discussed being diagnosed in his 20s with lesions on his spinal cord that caused chronic nerve damage and partial paralysis – an experience he described as “an ultimate low”.
Recalling the night he received his diagnosis, Jim said: “I found myself in the hospital one night because I was having such severe pain in my body, and in a New York City emergency room, I was there for 13 hours, and it was maybe 2am and the nurse came, and I said, ‘Is the doctor going to see me? What are you working me up for?’ And she said, ‘A diagnosis right there’.”
He added: “And it was a really scary diagnosis.”
Jim, who now walks with a limp, said he searched for information about the condition online while he was still in hospital and felt his body “freeze and seize up without the fear of what Google had to say about this”.
He recalled telling himself “tomorrow, everything changes”.
However, Jim said changing his outlook was a gradual process rather than something that happened immediately.
He added: “I’m not saying here that the doctor tells you to do something you should get up and leave. What I’m saying is that you don’t have to live as the victim. You don’t have to live in your suffering.”
He added struggles “can become your power as soon as you accept (them) and you love (them.)”
Jim also revealed he initially struggled to accept his medical condition and would tell people his limp was the result of a motorcycle crash.
He said: “I would say I got into a motorcycle accident. I was so shameful that I had a medical condition. (I thought) I was broken in some way. I thought the motorcycle accident was at least a little macho.”
Jim said he eventually “overcome” those feelings through “self-acceptance and self-love”, describing the process as “a long journey in which I realized I could have done it quicker”.
Jennifer questioned Jim during the event about what advice he would give someone who felt trapped in a life or career that did not fulfil them.
She asked: “If someone said to you, ‘I’m at this crossroads, and I am stuck, and I’m in this rat race of a life, and I’m fully invested, but I know that’s not my calling. My soul, my heart is screaming to do something else’. How would you help coach someone through that?”
Jim replied: “I’m not a proponent of ‘drop everything and leave’. That (acceptance) was 25 years in the making for me.”
He continued: “There’s a reality of life too. You have rent to pay and medical bills to pay and kids to feed, all of your stuff.”
Jim added: “But I will say this: you don’t have to let fear stop you from living your dream. You can manifest at any time by placing your focus on the outcomes that you want.”
Jennifer and Jim have been romantically linked since July 2025 and their appearance at 92NY was their first public work engagement together.
