Angelina Jolie is opening up about her younger — darker — self and says that part of her may now be resurfacing.

The actor sat down with Vogue in an interview highlighting the forthcoming launch of her fashion line, Atelier Jolie, an endeavor that will marry her socially conscious values with her affinity for fashion. But the Oscar-winning actor discussed more than Atelier Jolie.

The single mother of six told the outlet that having children saved her. Being present as a mother, Jolie explained, kept her from delving deeper into the darkness she’d faced in the last decade.

She was probably referencing her highly publicized roller-coaster relationship with Brad Pitt. He and Jolie met on the set of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” in 2004 and tied the knot in 2014 after 10 years of being a couple, and in 2016, Jolie filed for divorce — a messy and acrimonious dissolution that has played out in the media through various lawsuits and cases over the last several years. Jolie was also probably alluding to undergoing a full mastectomy in 2013, a medical choice she wrote about in a New York Times op-ed.

“I was 26 when I became a mother,” she told Vogue. “My entire life changed. Having children saved me — and taught me to be in this world differently.”
The actor adopted her son Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt from an orphanage in Cambodia in 2002. Pitt adopted Maddox a few years later.

Before the adoption, she told the Associated Press, she had never wanted to be a mom.

“It’s strange, I never wanted to have a baby,” she said. “I never wanted to be pregnant. I never babysat. I never thought of myself as a mother.” But, with Maddox, she said her feelings changed.
Jolie went on to adopt daughter Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt in late 2005, and in 2006, Jolie and Pitt announced they were expecting a baby. Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt was born that year. Jolie then adopted Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt in 2007. Pitt adopted him in 2008. That same year, Jolie and Pitt revealed that Jolie was again pregnant, and in July, she gave birth to twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt.

“I think, recently, I would’ve gone under in a much darker way had I not wanted to live for them,” Jolie told Vogue.

The actor also looked back to her younger years, when she was known for making headlines that solidified her standing as a Hollywood “bad girl.” “I went through heavy … times and I survived them,” she said in a 2011 interview with CBS. “I didn’t die young.”
It’s a label she still owns.

“I was quite dark when I was young,” she told Vogue. “I was a punk, not the popular kid — going to thrift stores, cutting things up, burning little teeny cigarette holes into things: That was me as a teenager, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Maybe that part of me wants to push back.”