Angelina Jolie has revealed that she once hired a hitman to kill her during a difficult period in her life when she was battling suicidal thoughts.
In a candid interview, the 49-year-old Oscar-winning actress shared that she struggled with her mental health in her early twenties, and at the age of 22, she devised a plan to end her life. Jolie recounted being in such a dark place that she wanted to escape her pain.
However, she was concerned about the impact her death would have on her family and friends, not wanting them to feel as though they had let her down.
She explained that her intention was to hire someone to kill her in a way that would appear as if she had died in a robbery, rather than from her own choice. In her initial revelation to IMDb, Jolie stated, “This is going to sound insane, but there was a time I was going to hire somebody to kill me.”
Jolie later elaborated on her plan in a 2003 interview with The Face magazine. She explained, “They’re not that hard to find in New York. 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.”
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She even devised a strategy to conceal her intentions, planning to withdraw cash over time to avoid leaving a large sum in her bank account. Jolie recounted that the man she hired gave her the opportunity to reconsider her decision before proceeding with it. “He was a decent enough person and asked if I could think about it and call him again in two months,” she shared.
Ultimately, something changed in her life during that time, leading her to decide to stick it out and seek a different path.