She lost her mother to cancer

When Angeline Jolie's mother Marcheline Bertrand (shown right) passed away in 2007 due to cancer, she was devastated. "I've had my fair share of things that have made me feel... you know, hard to speak too much about it, but just overwhelming or broken... it's a part of something when you feel like you just want to kind of hide under the covers or you're not sure what you've got left in you," Jolie said to ET Online. In a story for Time Magazine, Jolie described her mother's hardships and noted that chemotherapy was extremely difficult on Bertrand due to the side effects. With less of the terrible side effects, Jolie continued, "There are new approaches to determine which chemotherapy medicine is appropriate for each patient."

Bertrand battled ovarian cancer for nearly 10 years before succumbing to it in 2007 at the age of 56. Before she died, Bertrand made clear she was grateful for the life she had lived and said that "she had missed nothing in life except getting to know her grandchildren. "Jolie told Parade that she could visualize her mom singing songs in church and lighting candles. Jolie teared up when she said that she visited the church with her son after Bertrand passed away — they lit a candle in her memory.