Editor’s note: This article was originally published on June 24, 2021. It has since been updated.

Fans were still looking forward to Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt getting back together after his split with Angelina Jolie. The Friends star had recently reunited with Pitt in September for a live table reading of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Many assumed that the two might rekindle their relationship. Aniston cleared the air during her interview with Howard Stern where she explained that there was no awkwardness between them and said that they were just friends.

“It was absolutely fun. Brad and I are buddies, we’re friends,” Aniston said on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, as she appeared alongside her Friends costars Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox. The rumours started when She and Pitt played romantic interests in the star-studded virtual reading where Aniston portrayed Linda and Pitt read for Brad. “And we speak, and there’s no oddness at all, except for everyone that probably watched it and was wanting there to be, or assumed there to be,” Aniston said talking about the reading. “We had fun, and it was for a great cause, [Sean Penn’s community relief nonprofit] CORE,” she added, according to PEOPLE.