Studying Time: 3 minutes
Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy over a decade in the past.
Now, for the primary time, she is placing her scars on show.
Not like some painful occasions from her previous, Jolie says that she’s sharing these out of affection.
When she helps normalize preventative care and open discussions, it may assist save lives.
Actress Angelina Jolie attends the “Couture” crimson carpet through the twentieth Rome Movie Competition at Auditorium Parco Della Musica on October 18, 2025. (Picture Credit score: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Photographs)
Angelina Jolie already shares her scars with ‘women I love’
In a brand new interview with TIME France, Angelina Jolie explains why she is displaying her double mastectomy scars.
“I share these scars with many women I love,” she expressed.
“And,” Jolie famous, “I’m always moved when I see other women share theirs.”
The beloved actress defined: “I wanted to join them.”
Jolie emphasised that she did so “knowing that TIME France would be sharing information about breast health, prevention, and knowledge about breast cancer.”
As you’ll be able to see, Jolie poses for the quilt picture in a low-cut black prime.
Considered one of her arms covers one breast.
Pictures showcasing her double mastectomy scars will accompany the total interview.
That interview is out on December 18.
Jolie acquired a disturbing quantity of backlash for going underneath the knife. Some individuals actually have skewed priorities. It’s good that she doesn’t.
Angelina Jolie attends the premiere of “Couture” through the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition at Princess of Wales Theatre on September 07, 2025. (Picture Credit score: Cindy Ord/Getty Photographs)
What’s the BRCA1 gene? What’s its hyperlink to breast most cancers?
In 2013, Angelina Jolie underwent a double mastectomy. She additionally had her ovaries eliminated.
Each her mom and her grandmother had died when she was younger. She didn’t need the identical for any of her youngsters.
Jolie had additionally discovered that she carried the BRCA1 gene.
That is what’s often called a caretaker gene and is meant to play a job in repairing DNA and broken cells.
Nonetheless, if BRCA1 proteins endure mutation (as any cell would possibly), it should then “repair” cells incorrectly — inflicting an elevated danger of breast and ovarian most cancers.
Angelina Jolie attends the thirtieth Annual Critics Selection Awards at Barker Hangar on February 07, 2025. (Picture Credit score: Frazer Harrison/Getty Photographs)
Jolie is presently 50 years previous. Her mom, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died at 56.
Taking the medical steps to preventatively spare herself from the identical destiny was a robust, optimistic alternative.
Speaking concerning the surgical procedure, calling consideration to preventative most cancers remedy, pays that ahead.
Not everybody has entry to healthcare or the monetary sources to afford this surgical procedure (and the time to recuperate) even when they did.
However a lot of those that do would possibly hesitate to take this step as a consequence of social stigmas. Jolie is working to alter that.
Actress Angelina Jolie attends the world premiere of “Couture” on the Princess of Wales Theater through the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition (TIFF) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on September 7, 2025. (Picture Credit score: VALERIE MACON/AFP through Getty Photographs)
There may be a variety of stigma to beat
Primarily, Angelina Jolie helps to normalize sharing mastectomy scars.
More often than not, once we see mastectomy scars, they’re on males. There, they’re an unmitigated mark of celebration.
However the stigma of a lady eradicating her breasts, however, might be insidious inside our tradition.
Males can take it as a private assault, one way or the other. That occurred a dozen years in the past when Jolie underwent her double mastectomy.
So long as there are males who would moderately see a lady die than endure a mastectomy, preventable cancers will proceed to assert lives.
