Jim Curtis Opens Up About His Health Struggles to Girlfriend Jennifer Aniston in Rare Appearance

Jennifer Aniston and her boyfriend, Jim Curtis, gave fans a sweet glimpse of their romance during a rare event together in New York City.

The pair appeared at The 92nd Street Y in New York City on Wednesday, September 2, to celebrate Curtis’ new book, The Book of Possibility, with Aniston, 57, interviewing her beau, 50, on stage. In one powerful moment, Curtis reflected on his health struggles in his 20s when doctors found lesions on his spinal cord that caused partial paralysis and chronic nerve damage.

Curtis remembered that his whole body froze up in fear when he initially Googled his condition after being diagnosed.

“I’m not saying here that if the doctor tells you to do something, you should get up and leave,” he clarified. “What I’m saying is you don’t have to live as the victim. You don’t have to live in your suffering. It can become your power. As soon as you accept it and love it [you can move beyond it].”

Curtis spoke about often facing questions from friends and even “people on the street” about why he walks with a limp.

“I would say I got into a motorcycle accident. Why would I say that?” he said. “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. It was this identity of the ‘macho, strong man’ … it didn’t come with the connotation and shame of, ‘This can get worse.’”

Curtis stressed that he was only able to “overcome” those insecurities when he learned the value of “self-acceptance and self-love.”

“It was a long journey in which I realized I could have done it quicker … There are people who are just suffering because they don’t know what the next step is or they need a little bit of inspiration,” he said. “That was an easy choice for me.”

Aniston asked her beau what his advice would be if he were speaking to someone who was “stuck” in the “rat race of life.”

“I’m not a proponent for ‘drop everything and leave,’” he responded. “That [acceptance] was 25 years in the making for me. There’s a reality of life too. I always say we’re a spirit having a human experience. We have to live the human experience.”

He continued, “You have rent to pay and medical bills to pay and kids to feed, all of your stuff. 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.”

Days earlier, Curtis shed light on their relationship while appearing on the Monday, August 31, episode of “The Jamie Kern Lima Show” and shared that the couple “do a lot of meditation” and talking.

Curtis explained that there are “different tools” that are “really beneficial” at “different stages in your relationship,” adding, “Jen and I have been together a year and a half, so this tool isn’t the first tool that we go to.”

When host Jamie Kern Lima asked whether the “first tool” they utilize is meditation, he replied,
“Yeah, meditation. Acceptance, understanding. Those kind of things. In a honeymoon phase, your tools don’t have to be big sledgehammers.”

Curtis and Aniston have been together since mid-2025, making their romance Instagram official later that year.

“If this is a dream I don’t want to wake up ❤️,” he wrote alongside a series of photos.

Months later, Curtis shared that the couple’s “origin story” began when they had mutual friends and started talking.

“We found out that we had mutual friends, and we started to just chat,” he said on a January episode of the Today show. “And it took a long time. We chatted for a long time, and we became close.”

Aniston has similarly gushed over her romance with Curtis. In her November 2025 interview with Elle, she explained that the pair formed a bond over their wellness interests and described Curtis as “quite extraordinary.”

“Hypnotism is one of the many things that he does,” she said at the time, adding that Curtis is “very special, very normal and very kind.”

Aniston and Curtis have since been spotted dining with several of her famous pals. Last month, the couple enjoyed an evening in Los Angeles with her former Friends costars Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow and longtime pal Jason Bateman.

Aniston was previously married to Brad Pitt from 2000 to 2005 and Justin Theroux from 2015 to 2018.