Angelina Jolie is opening up about the pain of losing her mother. The 44-year-old actress bared all in a heartfelt Mother's Day op-ed for the New York Times on Sunday. In the tribute, Jolie wrote of how she "changed" after Marcheline Bertrand passed away from ovarian cancer in 2007.
"I lost my mother in my thirties," Jolie wrote. "When I look back to that time, I can see how much her death changed me. It was not sudden, but so much shifted inside. Losing a mother’s love and warm, soft embrace is like having someone rip away a protective blanket."
Jolie also wrote about the affair her father, actor Jon Voight, had and how it impacted her mother's life. Jolie was just a year old when Voight separated from Bertrand, who was his second wife, according to the U.K.'s Independent. He admitted to having an affair, which sparked their divorce.
"When my father had an affair, it changed her life," Jolie wrote of the split and how it changed her mother. "It set her dream of family life ablaze. But she still loved being a mother. Her dreams of being an actor faded as she found herself, at the age of 26, raising two children with a famous ex who would cast a long shadow on her life."
Jolie wrote of how "lonely and afraid" Bertrand must have been as a single mom but also how determined she was to look after her children. After her death, Jolie recalled how the feeling of "home and protection" faded.
"Life has taken many turns. I’ve had my own loss and seen my life take a different direction. And it hurt more than I imagined it ever would," she noted.
Becoming a mother herself, Jolie wrote of how she is able to appreciate her own mother so much more.
"But now, with my girls growing up and being the ages I remember so well as a daughter, I am rediscovering my mother and her spirit," she penned. "She was a girl who danced all night on the Sunset Strip and loved rock 'n' roll. She was a woman who loved, even after loss, and never lost her grace and her smile."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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