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Angelina Jolie is explaining why she loves her surgical scars.
Jolie made a rare comment about the scars from her past double mastectomy in a new interview with French media outlet French Inter. The Maria actress, 50, underwent the surgery in 2013 after learning she had a mutation in the BRCA1 gene which increased her risk of breast cancer, per People. Additionally, her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died in 2007 at the age of 56 after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999 and later breast cancer, Page Six reports.
"I've always been someone more interested in the scars and the life that people carry," she said. "I'm not drawn to some perfect idea of a life that has no scars."
Jolie, who portrays a woman diagnosed with breast cancer in her upcoming film Couture, explained that her scars prove that she will do whatever she can to make sure she can be around for her children. She shares six kids with ex-husband Brad Pitt: Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 18, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 16.
"I see my scars are a choice I made to do what I could do to stay here as long as I could with my children," she said. "I love my scars because of that. And I'm grateful that I had the opportunity and the choice to do something proactive about my health."
Jolie also sees scars as proof that you have experienced a life well lived.
"So for me, I think this is life," she said, "and if you get to the end of your life and you haven't made mistakes and you haven't made a mess, you don't have scars, you haven't lived a full enough life."