Aniston’s more than ready to graduate from the rumor mill

“Rumor Has It …” star Jennifer Aniston wants to set the record straight on one recent rumor: She is not expecting a baby.

“Hey guys, you know what? If all this (were true), I should have had 10 babies by now, married five times,” the 36-year-old actress said at a recent press event to promote the film, which opens in theaters today.

So she won’t be adopting a child anytime soon?

“That’s not me,” she says slyly – a thinly veiled reference to ex-husband Brad Pitt, who’s seeking to formally become the father of current girlfriend Angelina Jolie‘s two adopted children.

“Rumor Has It …” stars Aniston as a woman who discovers that her late mother and her grandmother (played by Shirley MacLaine) once slept with the same man, providing the inspiration for the book and film “The Graduate.”

During the interview, MacLaine jumps into the conversational fray, referring to reports that Aniston is dating Vince Vaughn – with whom she acted opposite in the upcoming comedy “The Break Up” and with whom she’s been spotted canoodling on a balcony in his hometown of Chicago.

“Here’s the truth: Vince Vaughn prefers older women. (Jennifer) is my beard,” jokes MacLaine.

“I was the one in the car in that southwestern state,” she says of the incident where Vaughn and Aniston were stopped by police while driving in Arizona. “And the truth is, I’m basically having a ball and she’s taking all the gaff.”

“We worked it out a long time ago,” adds Aniston with a smile.

Not so amusing is her lawsuit against photographer Peter Brandt, who shot topless pictures of her last month – while standing on a public street 300 yards from her house, he says.

“I’m not going into the details of it, but you have to set a precedent,” Aniston says, insisting that Brandt used “a very big lens, from a very big, long distance away.”

The actress, who admits to occasionally hopping a plane alone to Hawaii to be by herself, thinks that the tabloid reports have gotten out of hand because of the saturated market.

“There’s so many new magazines now,” she says, “I think that they’re just desperate to fill, now that the demand is greater, so they’re just going nuts with taking just anything, rehashing stories.”

Despite the media circus, Aniston says that most of the press has been sympathetic to her feelings.

“People have been great. People have been really, for the most part, knowing what people could do, where they could go … It’s been fine,” she says. “There’s a lot of respect. I really appreciate it.”

Aniston also reluctantly admits that the news of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey‘s breakup over Thanksgiving overshadowed her own scrutiny by the media for a brief period of time.

“It did. That’s a terrible thing (to say),” confesses Aniston. “Isn’t that disgusting?”

Quips MacLaine: “Maybe we’ll get Elton John to divorce David Furnish.”

The birthday bunch

Singer Jimmy Buffett is 59. Country singer Barbara Mandrell is 57. Actress Sissy Spacek is 56. Singer Annie Lennox is 51. Singer Steve Wariner is 51. Singer Shane MacGowan (the Pogues) is 48. Singer Dido is 34. Singer Mac Powell (Third Day) is 33. Country singer Alecia Elliott is 23.