The couple touched on Curtis’ past injury that led to chronic nerve damage during a discussion at The 92nd Street Y in New York City
Credit: Raymond Hall/GC Images; Jairo/BACKGRID
NEED TO KNOW
- Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend, Jim Curtis, opened up about a spinal cord diagnosis in his 20s that caused chronic nerve damage and partial paralysis during a public appearance at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Wednesday, Sept. 2.
- Curtis shared how self-acceptance and perspective shifts helped him overcome shame and embrace his health journey.
- Aniston and Curtis have been romantically linked since 2025, with sources calling their relationship a “great partnership”.
Jennifer Aniston and boyfriend Jim Curtis are getting candid about his past health struggles.
The couple made a rare joint public appearance at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Wednesday, Sept. 2, in celebration of Curtis’ new book, The Book of Possibility.
During the conversation, Curtis, 50, a hypnotist, opened up about how his health journey shaped his perspective and outlook. He also discussed how the discovery of lesions on his spinal cord that caused chronic nerve damage and partial paralysis in his 20s impacted him.
Credit: Raymond Hall/GC Images
Curtis — who now walks with a limp — called the diagnosis “an ultimate low.”
“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 2:00 a.m. 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,’” Curtis recounted. “And it was a really scary diagnosis.”
Upon Googling the diagnosis while still in the hospital, Curtis said he felt his body “freeze and seize up without the fear of what Google had to say about this.”
He then said he fought through the fear, thinking to himself, “Tomorrow, everything changes.”
However, the hypnotist acknowledged that these perspective shifts were gradual and took him some time to make.
“I’m not saying here that the doctor tells you to do something you should get up and leave,” Curtis said. “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 that your struggles “can become your power as soon as you accept [them] and you love [them].”
Credit: Jairo/BACKGRID
Before Curtis came to accept the impact of his injury, he once told people that he got into a motorcycle accident.
“I would say I got into a motorcycle accident,” Curtis 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.”
He shared that he was able to “overcome” those feelings through “self-acceptance and self-love,” although it was certainly “a long journey in which I realized I could have done it quicker.”
During the conversation, the Friends alum, 57, went on to ask Curtis, who also works as a life coach: “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?”
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“I’m not a proponent of ‘drop everything and leave,’” he replied. “That [acceptance] was 25 years in the making for me.”
“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,” he continued. “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.”
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Aniston and Curtis have been romantically linked since July 2025, PEOPLE previously reported.
In May, Curtis shared photos with Aniston, including a kissing selfie, and PEOPLE confirmed that the pair had celebrated their first anniversary.
A source told PEOPLE that the couple enjoys a “great partnership and [Curtis] makes Jen very happy.”
“Jim’s a special guy,” the source added. “Everyone loves his energy.”
On the Aug. 31 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Curtis spoke about the tight-knit group of friends, including fellow Friends star Courteney Cox, that Aniston has, which he described as “like family.”
“I feel incredibly blessed to be part [of] and welcomed into that family,” he added.
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