Jodie Foster opens up about the lasting trauma from John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, revealing its impact on her theater career and personal life.

The Oscar-winning actress, Jodie Foster reflected on her traumatic experience when John Hinckley Jr. made an assassination attempt on then-president, Ronald Reagan. John Hinckley Jr. reportedly attempted to murder Reagan in the hope of impressing Foster. Talking about the incident, Foster stated that she could never compel herself to do theater again.

Jodie Foster on the aftermath of John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted murder

Jodie Foster recently conversed with Jodie Comer for Interview Magazine, wherein the Taxi Driver actress revealed her fear associated with the theaters. Foster shared that she did theater once during her college time at Yale University, but what followed next was totally unexpected and took a deep toll on her.

Foster’s play was supposed to happen over two weekends, and the actress was successfully able to wrap up her performance on the first one. However, in between the first and the second weekend, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to kill then-US president, Ronald Reagan. Recalling the event, Foster revealed that Hinckley Jr. tried to kill Reagan so that he could impress her, and even sent her hand-written letters.

Talking about the aftermath of the incident, Foster shared that she was surrounded by the Secret Service and was even moved to a safe house. Despite all this, she wanted to do her show on the second weekend.

She shared, “The world fell apart, there were Secret Service people everywhere, I had bodyguards, and I had to be taken to a safe house, and I was in the middle of these two weekends of this play, and I had the dumb idea of ‘the show must go on.’ So I was like, ‘I have to do that second weekend.’”

Jodie Foster on the trauma involved with theater

With Foster’s dedication to doing the second show, she managed to put herself on the stage but sadly things went downhill once again. Recalling that night, the Oscar-winning actress shared that she spotted a guy in the front row who made his second appearance on the show. Thus she decided to use him when her entire play yelled, “F*ck you, moth*rf*cker!”

Later it was revealed that the guy had brought his gun on the show and was on the run after the play. Foster however had to pay for the consequences as while she was in the class, a bodyguard came and tossed her to the ground in front of her entire class, making the actress feel extremely embarrassed.

Foster admitted all this attached a very traumatic experience to the theater for her and she had to condition herself to love and watch theater again. But she still failed to convince herself to perform theater again.

“It was a traumatic moment, and I’ve never admitted that maybe that has something to do with how I never wanted to do a play again,” Foster stated. “It was all part of that. I talked myself into loving theater and going to theater, but somehow feeling like I couldn’t make that commitment to ever do it again.”

Foster’s words surely reflect the trauma she had to endure in the entire case. John Hinckley Jr. was however found not guilty of his attempted murder due to his unstable mental condition and had to spend nearly three decades in psychiatric care. However, in 2022, he was completely released from the court restrictions and he went ahead to apologize for his past deeds in an interview with CBS News.