“I Was Going to Hire a Hitman”: Angelina Jolie’s Darkest Hour and the Decision That Changed Everything

Before she became one of the most recognizable actresses and humanitarians in the world, Angelina Jolie was a 22-year-old woman fighting an invisible war within herself. At the height of a personal crisis, long before she was a mother, an Oscar winner, or a global ambassador, Jolie came chillingly close to ending her own life—and the way she planned to do it still shocks many to this day.

In a candid 2003 interview, Jolie revealed that at her lowest point, she considered hiring a hitman to take her life. Her rationale was painfully revealing: she believed a murder would be less traumatizing to her family than a suicide. “With suicide comes all the guilt of people around you thinking they could have done something,” she explained. “With somebody being murdered, nobody takes some kind of guilty responsibility.”

Jolie’s mental health challenges weren’t new. From her teenage years, she struggled with feelings of emptiness, self-harm, insomnia, and substance abuse. Her fame, which skyrocketed quickly in her early twenties, only deepened her sense of isolation. Despite the glamorous exterior, Jolie was breaking under the weight of depression, and by age 22, she was quietly unraveling.

But the most unexpected twist in this harrowing chapter came from the man she had intended to pay to end her life. According to Jolie, the hitman she contacted responded not with violence—but with compassion. He urged her to take time to think. “He asked me to wait and call him in two months,” she recalled. “And in that time, I began to think. I began to feel again.”

That pause—just two months—changed everything.

In the years that followed, Jolie slowly began to heal. A major turning point came in 2002 when she adopted her first child, Maddox. “I knew once I committed to Maddox, I would never be self-destructive again,” she said in later interviews. Motherhood gave her a reason to stay alive, a new purpose that replaced the darkness with duty—and eventually, love.

Today, Angelina Jolie is not just a survivor of mental illness—she’s a voice for it. Her willingness to publicly share the most painful parts of her journey has helped lift the stigma around depression and suicidal ideation. She’s transformed her pain into advocacy, using her platform to speak honestly about trauma, resilience, and the reality that healing often begins in the most unexpected ways—even from a phone call that was never supposed to be answered.

Her story is a reminder: sometimes the smallest pause can be the space someone needs to choose life. And sometimes, even the person you think might end your story can unknowingly help you begin a new one.