Angelina Jolie on Showing Mastectomy Scars: ‘I Share These Scars With Many Women I Love’

Twelve years after her decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy in 2013, Angelina Jolie is publicly showing her scars from the operation in order to raise awareness about breast health and breast cancer prevention.

During an interview with Time France, Jolie was asked why she chose to reveal the results of her procedure. “I share these scars with many women I love,” the Oscar winner told the publication, which shared a preview of its feature — with the full interview set to release on Dec. 18. “And I’m always moved when I see other women share theirs. I wanted to join them, knowing that TIME France would be sharing information about breast health, prevention, and knowledge about breast cancer.”

In an op-ed piece for The New York Times in 2013, titled “My Medical Choice,” Jolie shared that she carries a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which doctors estimated put her at an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer. Jolie — whose mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died in 2007 at 56 after being diagnosed with cancer — completed procedures for the mastectomies on April 27 that year.

“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy,” wrote Jolie at the time. “But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

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In March 2015, Jolie said that as a preventive step against developing ovarian cancer, she also had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.

Jolie stars in Alice Winocour’s upcoming movie Couture, in which she plays an American filmmaker who discovers she has breast cancer in the middle of Paris Fashion Week. “My mother was ill for years. 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 told Time France. “I love this film because it tells a story that goes far beyond the journey of a sick person: it shows life. It was this luminous perspective that touched me and made me want to play this role.”