Jennifer Aniston was forced to shed 30 pounds for portraying Rachel Green?

Jennifer Aniston was recently in the news for her timeless beauty even as she turned 50. However, the star was reportedly asked to shed 30 pounds before she landed a role in "Friends".

Author Saul Austerlitz in her new book "Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show that Defined a Television Era," claimed that Jennifer Aniston was asked to slim down if she wanted to make it to Hollywood.

Before Aniston rose to fame with the portrayal of style icon Rachel Green in the famous American sitcom "Friends," she was apparently called "too fat" by a number of executives.

"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 levelling with her," Austerlitz wrote in the book.

The author further stressed that Aniston was "hardly fat" and "everyone could see she was beautiful," but the show which later became her pedestal to fame noted that "the camera added ten pounds," reports Yahoo.

Although Aniston has not confirmed Austerlitz's claims in the book, she has earlier also opened up about the criticism she faced in Hollywood for her weight.

"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,'" the actress said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, just two years after she made an entry to TV screens as Rachel.

"I was like, 'What?!' But my diet was terrible. Milkshakes and French fries with gravy. It was a good thing to start paying attention," she added in the interview.

"The Good Girl" actress was recently honoured with a capsule collection by Ralph Lauren, as a tribute to the "Friends" 25th anniversary. Aniston played a fictional employee of Ralph Lauren in the Sitcom.

"The collection is a celebration of the brand's role in the series, as she worked there for several seasons. Just as Friends has proven to be a perennial favourite series for viewers over the last 25 years, this collection reflects Ralph Lauren's timeless styles and archetypes that have remained a go-to for the modern working woman," the Ralph Lauren press release read.

The pilot episode of the iconic sitcom was aired on NBC on September 22, 1994, and the last episode was aired on May 6, 2004. With an ensemble cast starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, the show lasted 10 seasons with a total of 236 episodes.