Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie open up on marriage, health in rare interview

As Angelina Jolie made the difficult decision to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in March, her mother’s own eight-year battle with cancer was never far from her mind.

“We had some of the same nurses, some of the same doctors,” Jolie told Tom Brokaw in a rare joint interview with husband Brad Pitt on TODAY Monday. “So, the doctor that did my ovary surgery was my mother’s doctor. And apparently my mother had said to her, ‘Promise me you will take Angie’s ovaries out.’ So when we kind of got together, we both had a big cry, and she said, ‘I promised your mother, and I gotta do this.'”

Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999 and died at 56 years old in 2007. Jolie and Pitt’s upcoming movie, “By the Sea,” was inspired by Jolie’s bereavement after her mother’s death. Jolie not only acts in the film but also is the writer, director and producer.

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