For Angelina Jolie, beauty has never come from trying to look flawless - it's more about the journey we take. And now that she's 50, the Oscar winner is getting real about the physical reminders of her 2013 double mastectomy, and she's framing them not as something to hide, but as a badge of honour that says she beat cancer
In a new interview with the French radio station France Inter, Jolie gets pretty raw talking about how she's always been more interested in the life people live and the journey they're on, rather than the perfect "facade" they put up.
"I'm just not drawn to the idea of a perfect life without any scars," she says. For a mum of six with kids who are now growing up and having their own lives [Maddox is 24 & Pax is 22], those surgical marks are a daily reminder of just how hard she fought for them. "I see my scars & that's a choice I made to be here for my kids for as long as I could."
This week's comments come after her stunning photoshoot for Time France last December, where she showed her mastectomy scars for the first time in a decade. That was a subtle but deliberate move to stand with women from all over the world who've been through the same thing. "I share these scars with women I love," she says, explaining that she went public the first time to help break the isolation that often comes with a cancer diagnosis.
Going public with her scars also has a lot to do with her past. Remember when her mum lost her battle with breast and ovarian cancer back in 2007, when she was only 56? Jolie has said before that it's one reason why she's been so proactive about her own health - she's raising her kids without a grandmother. And with the release of her new film Couture - where she plays a woman dealing with a cancer diagnosis - she's pushing the conversation around healthcare and being in control of your own life.
For Jolie, it's simple: information is power & every woman should be able to decide what's best for her own body. "Every woman should be able to set her own path," she says - and that's a message that's loud & clear: while scars tell a sad story of what's been lost, they also tell a bigger story about what we chose to keep.