Angelina Jolie has faced mental health challenges throughout her life, particularly during her early career when she felt overwhelmed by uncertainties. A series of traumatic events led her to a heartbreaking revelation—she once contemplated hiring a hitman to end her life, a desperate decision made during a period when she felt unable to endure further.
Fortunately, Jolie did not proceed with this harrowing plan, but the idea lingered in her mind for several years during her young adulthood. Even before experiencing the complexities of fame, she struggled with isolation as a teenager and turned to self-harm as a coping mechanism during her school years. Reflecting on this, she shared, “For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me.”
The scars from her adolescent struggles persisted as her acting career gained momentum and intensified when she entered the spotlight. At the age of 20, Jolie sought solace in drug use, experimenting with various substances, with heroin becoming her drug of choice.
Her substance abuse strained an already fractured relationship with her father, Jon Voight, who had left the family when she was an infant. Their distant and tumultuous connection played out publicly through periods of estrangement and reconciliation. During this time, her father disassociated from her due to her escalating addictions.
Jolie’s initial suicide attempt occurred at 19, and by the age of 22, she devised what she believed was a clever plan to escape the stresses of life. In an interview with IMDB, she revealed, “This is going to sound insane but there was a time I was going to hire somebody to kill me.” Jolie explained her rationale, stating, “With suicide comes all the guilt of people around you thinking they could have done something. With somebody being murdered, nobody takes some kind of guilty responsibility.”
Speaking further about the incident, Jolie acknowledged, “As insane as it sounds, I think a lot of people consider suicide when they’re young.” Concerned about the impact on her loved ones, she envisioned a scenario where her death appeared to be a result of a “robbery” rather than suicide, lessening the burden on those around her.
Remarkably, it was not Jolie who changed her mind, but the hired hitman who persuaded her to reconsider. “He was a decent enough person and asked if I could think about it and call him again in two months,” she recalled. A shift in her life circumstances prompted her to persevere.
While her mental health struggles persisted, Jolie faced a nervous breakdown at 24. However, with the arrival of her first child, she found the stability she had always longed for in her life. Today, we owe a debt of gratitude to a hitman with a conscience for Jolie’s continued presence.