Being a part of the entertainment industry is not always rainbows and butterflies. People have to go through immense struggles to make it big. Even after reaching the height of success, celebrities have to deal with extreme mental health issues. Angelina Jolie, too, was the victim of these mental health issues.
That’s right. The actress who we all love and adore, went through a horrible period in her life during the early days of her career. While Angelina Jolie has made it exponentially big in the industry today, there was a time when she was ready to give her life up. In order to do so, she went to the lengths of even hiring a hitman to kill her, as she didn’t want to commit suicide.
Angelina Jolie Hired a Hitman to Take Her Life
Early on in her career, things were not going great for Angelina Jolie. She suffered from mental health issues for quite some time, often contemplating committing suicide. Reportedly, her first suicide attempt was when she was only nineteen. In an interview with The Face, Jolie opened up about how things got so bad once that she decided to hire an actual hitman to take her life. However, the hitman became the person who made Jolie rethink her decision and give life another chance.
“He was a decent enough person and asked if I could think about it and call him again in two months. Something changed in my life and I figured I’d stick it out.”
Why did Jolie want to take this route? Well, she believed that if her family thought she had been murdered, they would have been freed from feeling guilty.
“With suicide comes all the guilt of people around you thinking they could have done something. With somebody being murdered, however, nobody takes some kind of guilty responsibility.”
Elaborating on this, Jolie stated that she knew the effect her suicide would have on her family and friends, and she didn’t want them to go through those horrible, self-blaming emotions.
“As insane as it sounds, I think a lot of people consider suicide when they’re young. I was very aware that so many people around me, like my mother, would feel as though they didn’t give enough or do enough if I’d taken my own life. so my solution to that was if someone else had taken my life – like in a ‘robbery’ – then it would be murder and it wouldn’t be that anyone would feel they’d let me down.”
Jolie even went into the details of her plan where she decided to “take out cash over a certain amount of time” so people would not find it suspicious seeing such a huge sum sent to the guy who almost took her life. Thankfully, Jolie decided not to go through with her heart-wrenching plan.
Angelina Jolie is Grateful for Her Characters
Jolie has time and again played strong, bold characters in her films. And as it turns out, it was these characters that gave the actress the strength to feel strong. During Disney’s press conference, Jolie opened up about how her divorce from Brad Pitt had been affecting her and how she, just like everyone else, feels weak and low.
“I’m like everybody and…especially these last few years haven’t been the easiest, and I haven’t felt very strong. There’s something when you’re not feeling very strong, where you push yourself.”
Jolie went on to talk about how her characters, like Maleficent and Thena, helped her move forward.
“And I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity to play these kind of characters that pull out every bit of strength I have and that remind me that I can be strong…Sometimes you really feel low and you [have] got to pull it back up. Right now, for Thena, I’m having to do so much training and she’s so positive, so healthy and she’s so aggressive that I’m often like, ‘This is not going to work.’ But, you got to push yourself.”
Such an accomplished actress facing these mental health issues just goes on to say that we are all in the same boat, more or less. What matters is that we don’t give up. And if you face these issues, don’t shy away from asking for help! As for others, you must take the time out to check up on your family and friends. You just might save a life!
Source: The Face
