Angelina Jolie opened up about the meaning behind her scars, describing them as symbols of strength and choice.
In a recent interview with France Interthe Oscar-winning actress and director said she has learned to embrace the marks after her preventative double mastectomy in 2013.
“I’ve always been someone who’s more interested in the scars and the life that people carry,” Jolie explained.
“My scars are a choice I made to do what I could to stay here as long as I could with my kids. I love my scars because of it and I’m grateful that I had the choice to be proactive about my health.”
Her decision was shaped by her family history.
Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died aged 56 after battling ovarian and breast cancer.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Star later discovered she carried the BRCA1 gene mutation, which significantly increased her risk of developing breast cancer.
He wrote in 2013 New York Times column My choice of doctorshe revealed that the surgery reduced her risk from 87 percent to less than 5 percent.
“I lost my mother when I was young,” she said. “And I’m raising my kids without a grandmother. So I think this is life. And if you get to the end of your life and you haven’t made mistakes, you haven’t made a mess, you haven’t got scars, you haven’t lived a full enough life.”
For the uninitiated, Jolie shares six children with ex-husband Brad Pitt: Maddox (24), Pax (22), Zahara (21), Shiloh (19) and 17-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
