Angelina Jolie opens up on ‘love’ for her double mastectomy scars

Angelina Jolie has opened up about her love for her double mastectomy scars, 13 years after undergoing the preventative procedure.

Having lost her mother, actor Marcheline Bertrand, to cancer in 2007, as well as her aunt and grandmother, the Oscar-winning actor made the choice in 2013 to have the tissue from both breasts removed.

She received implants two months later, the scars from which she showed publicly for the first time in December on the cover of Time France.

In a new video interview with France Inter, Jolie, 50, has now spoken passionately about her scars. “I've always been someone more interested in the scars and the life that people carry,” the Maleficent star explained. “I’m not drawn to some perfect idea of a life that has no scars.”

Jolie’s decision to have the operation came years after her mother’s death, when doctors told her that she had a “faulty gene” called BRCA 1 that meant the likelihood of her developing breast cancer was high.

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She underwent her double mastectomy in February 2013 with follow-up procedures two months later. In May 2013, she wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, where she explained that while the decision “was not easy”, she was “very happy that I made” it.

“On a personal note. I do not feel any less of a woman,” she wrote at the time. “I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”

Jolie’s story has been reflected in her work, too. She’s soon to star in Couture, a film set at Paris Fashion Week where Jolie speaks both French and English while playing a filmmaker who is diagnosed with breast cancer.

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Speaking to France Inter now, Jolie explained that she was particularly proud of her scars as they reflected her ability to parent her children. The Hollywood star, who is known for her humanitarian work, shares six children with her ex-husband Brad Pitt: Maddox, 24, Pax, 22, Zahara, 21, Shiloh, 19, Knox, 17, and Vivienne, 17.

The mother-of-six said: “My scars are a choice I made to do what I could do to stay here as long as I could with my children. I love my scars because of that, and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to have the choice to do something proactive about my health.”

While December marked the first time Jolie had shared her scars publicly – something she did while calling for screenings for BRCA genes to be made available to all women – she has never shied away from sharing them with her kids.

“They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can,” she wrote in 2013.