Angelina Jolie Shows Double Mastectomy Scars for the First Time

Angelina Jolie has appeared on nearly every major magazine over the course of her career, but her latest cover is unique for a highly personal reason. For the first time, Jolie publicly revealed her double mastectomy scars.

Jolie, 50, stars on the inaugural cover of Time France this week. The portrait, taken by photographer Nathaniel Goldberg, shows small scars on her breast from the preventive surgery she underwent in 2013.

“I share these scars with many women I love,” the Oscar-winning actress told the magazine. “And I’m always moved when I see other women share theirs.”

Jolie also opened up about her role in Coutures, directed by French filmmaker Alice Winocour, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

In the film, she plays Maxine Walker, an American director diagnosed with breast cancer. The plot closely mirrors her own life; Jolie, who has directed four feature films herself, carries a “faulty” BRCA1 gene, which puts her at a far greater risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer than the rest of the population.

Jolie lost her mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, to complications from breast and ovarian cancer in 2007, at the age of 56. During filming, Jolie told the magazine, she wore her late mother’s jewelry, noting that the pieces contain her mother’s ashes.

“My mother was ill for years,” Jolie said in the interview. “One evening, when she was being asked about her chemotherapy, she became very emotional and told me she would have preferred to talk about something else; she felt as though the illness was becoming her entire identity.”

Jolie underscored the importance of access to cancer screening, particularly for women whose genetic or family histories put them at greater risk. “Every woman should always be able to determine her own healthcare journey and have the information she needs to make informed choices,” she said.

The actress has advocated for access to cancer screening and treatments for over a decade. In a May 2013 New York Times op-ed, she publicized her decision to have a preventative double mastectomy, sharing in the hopes that other women would understand that screening via a simple blood test was available. Two years later, she would undergo surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes as well.

Before her surgeries, Jolie said her doctors estimated that she had “an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.” After, she said, her risk of developing cancer plummeted below 5 percent.

After Jolie went public with her story, doctors reported that more women sought testing for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, a phenomenon dubbed "The Angelina Effect."

Time France published its cover, accompanied by an abbreviated version of Jolie’s interview and behind-the-scenes video, on Monday. But the publication noted that a full version of the interview wouldn’t be available until the issue arrived on newsstands on December 18. It is unclear whether additional portraits of Jolie will appear in the print issue.

While Time France’s new cover is Jolie’s first time allowing her scars to be photographed by a media outlet, she briefly mentioned them 12 years ago. In the 2013 New York Times op-ed, she described her children’s reactions: “It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars, and that’s it.”