Angelina Jolie has gone from weird chick who kissed her brother on the lips, to wearing a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck to American royalty and international advocate. The mother of six previously had preventative double mastectomy and ovarian removal, and she is now opening up about her latest health scare.
Jolie told Vanity Fair that she developed Bell’s palsy last year.
Bell’s palsy is a condition that leads to paralysis of facial nerves and restricted facial movement.
Jolie said acupuncture helped her to a full recovery, but she thinks the condition was a result of self-neglect.
“Sometimes women in families put themselves last,” she told the magazine, “until it manifests itself in their own health.”
Jolie opened up to Vanity Fair about the stress she has been under during her divorce from the father of her children, Brad Pitt.
The 42-year-old actress, director, lecturer at London School of Economics and activist has asked for sole custody of her children and Pitt recently told GQ about his issues with drugs and alcohol.
Jolie said she is not one to show emotion in front of her kids.
“I was very worried about my mother, growing up—a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me,” she told Vanity Fair. “I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right even when you’re not sure it is.”
Jolie also kept her cancer scares from her children back in 2013. She penned an op-ed for The New York Times in 2013 and 2015 about the ordeals.
“I feel feminine, and grounded in the choices I am making for myself and my family,” she wrote at the time. “I know my children will never have to say, ‘Mom died of ovarian cancer.’”
