Years ago, Justin Theroux and Jennifer Aniston called it quits, and now he’s finally putting an end to one rumor!

Theroux denied in an interview with Esquire that the pair split up because she wanted to reside in Los Angeles and he wanted to remain in New York.

“That’s a narrative that is not true, for the most part,” Theroux said when asked if their desire to live on separate coasts had a hand in their breakup.

“Look, people create narratives that make themselves feel better or simplify things for them,” he added. “That whole ‘This person likes rock ‘n’ roll, that person likes jazz. Of course!’ That’s just not the case. It’s an oversimplification.”

Theroux also discussed their current relationship, saying that they had “remained friends” despite their breakup, adding, “We don’t talk every day, but we call each other. We FaceTime. We text.”

“Like it or not, we didn’t have that dramatic split, and we love each other,” he added. “I’m sincere when I say that I cherish our friendship. We can not be together and still bring each other joy and friendship. Also, she makes me laugh very, very hard. She’s a hilarious person. It would be a loss if we weren’t in contact, for me personally. And I’d like to think the same for her.”

Theroux and Aniston separated in 2018. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

After three years of marriage, the couple announced their split in 2018. “Normally we would do this privately,” they explained, “but given that the gossip industry cannot resist an opportunity to speculate and invent, we wanted to convey the truth directly. Whatever else is printed about us that is not directly from us, is someone else’s fictional narrative. Above all, we are determined to maintain the deep respect and love that we have for one another.”

Since their divorce, Theroux has paid several public birthday tributes to Aniston, and the ex-couple celebrated Thanksgiving with some of their pals, including Jimmy Kimmel, Jason Bateman, and Courteney Cox, in 2019.

“I think that when you get good at relationships — and here I am, single — if you love the person the same way you loved them in the relationship, it would behoove you to love them the same way out of the relationship,” he told Esquire. “Who wants to take a s— while you’re walking out the door?”

In a September 2018 interview with The New York Times, Theroux mentioned his breakup from Aniston for the first time. And it doesn’t appear like their relationship has altered much since then. “The good news is that was probably the most—I’m choosing my words really carefully—it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity,” he stated at the time. “Again, neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other. It’s more like, it’s amicable. It’s boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be.”

ET chatted with Theroux last month about the possibility of collaborating with Aniston again now that they’re both part of the Apple TV+ family. The Mosquito Coast, which releases on Netflix on April 30, stars Theroux, while The Morning Show stars and is executive produced by Aniston.

Regarding the possibility of joining The Morning Show, Theroux quipped to ET, “Listen, if they wanna send me some pages. [Jennifer’s] doing a totally different show. She’s in Los Angeles, obviously, shooting her show and bopping around there. So, it was sort of apples and oranges as far as our productions go.”