Years ago, before her highly publicized marriage to Brad Pitt and adoption of multiple children, Angelina Jolie went through an extremely dark period of time.
According to celebrity biographer Andrew Morton, the Mr. & Mrs. Smith star's troubled childhood screwed her up badly.
"This book tells the true story of her life, the one where, as a little baby, she was on the fifth floor on a crib because her mother couldn't bear to look at her because she reminded her of Jon Voight, her husband who had left her for another woman," wrote Morton.
In addition to that, she allegedly experimented with drugs, and cut herself to feel better. Morton added, "And that's a sense of release and for most of us, it's weird but for someone like Angelina, who's in this psychological trauma, it's a release."
There were also rumors swirling about her whirlwind marriage to actor Billy Bob Thornton, as well as the strange relationship with her brother (they were caught kissing on multiple different occasions).
These allegations haunted the actress as she auditioned for the role of Lara Croft in the 2001 action film Tomb Raider. Her father, actor Jon Voight, and Jabe Fonda warned then-chairwoman of Paramount Pictures, Sherry Lansing, about Jolie's "baggage," and as as a result she was subjected to a drug test.
"Look, I want to do it, but I know what my reputation is, and I'll do anything you want to prove that I'm worthy," Jolie told the film's director, according to an excerpt from The Hollywood Reporter. "I'll be reliable, and I'll turn up, and I'll work hard. I don't care if the studio wants to drug test me every day."
The Paramount executives were also concerned about Jolie's physical and mental well-being, so they also hired a team of professionals to help her. The movie went on to become a box-office success, earning $275 million worldwide on its opening weekend. It also helped set up Jolie, who was 24-years-old at the time, to become one of the most sought after actresses in Hollywood.
But despite her overnight success, she was still battling an inner demon, and contemplated taking her life in the most shocking way.
In an interview with the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) a couple of years ago, the actress revealed that she was going through a "rather bleak" time which forced her to contemplate suicide.
However, instead of taking her own life, she took a more drastic approach: she hired a hitman.
''This is going to sound insane but there was a time I was going to hire somebody to kill me,'' Jolie admitted.
The actress, who was in her mid-twenties when she made that decision, felt that having someone else kill her would've been easier on her family.
''With suicide comes all the guilt of people around you thinking they could have done something,'' she said. ''With somebody being murdered, nobody takes some kind of guilty responsibility.''
So how come Jolie is still alive today?
Turns out, when she approached the hitman he gave her some extra time to reflect on her decision before signing up.
''The person spoke very sweetly to me, he made me think about it for a month," Jolie recalled. "And after a month other things changed in my life and I was surviving again."
Ironically, the person she hired to kill her saved her life.
Jolie got her life back on track starting with a divorce from Thornton in 2003. She started a relationship with Pitt two years later, after meeting on set. The pair separated in 2016, but have recently put their divorce on hold to work through their issues.
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