“I didn’t die young, and that’s good already”

“Mother never screamed and never cursed. She was crying and I often heard her crying because our bedrooms were next to each other. Once, while still at school – don’t ask me what I was doing – I came home in the morning and saw her tear-stained face, the face of a man who had cried all night.

The mother and aunt of the actress died of cancer. In 2013, in order to reduce the risk of the disease, Jolie decided on a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy – in other words, she removed the mammary glands. A year later, she admitted that she removed her ovaries for the same reasons.

Photo: Reuters / Lefteris Pitarakis