For decades, Jodie Foster has been one of Hollywood’s most revered figures, her career spanning iconic roles in films like Taxi Driver, The Silence of the Lambs, and Nyad. Yet, beneath the accolades and Oscar wins lies a deeply personal wound that has shaped her life in ways she has rarely discussed publicly. On this quiet evening in Los Angeles, as Pride Month celebrations cast a vibrant glow across the city, Foster, now 62, opens up about the trauma she endured following John Hinckley Jr.’s 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan—an act driven by his obsessive fixation on her. In an exclusive interview, she shares how this harrowing experience altered her career trajectory, her sense of safety, and her relationship with the public eye, offering a rare glimpse into a chapter she has long kept private.
It was March 30, 1981, when Hinckley, then 25, fired six shots outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, wounding Reagan, White House Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and police officer Thomas Delahanty. Brady’s injuries left him paralyzed, and he died 33 years later from complications. Hinckley’s motive, as he later confessed, was to impress Foster, an 18-year-old Yale freshman he had become infatuated with after watching her portrayal of a teenage prostitute in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. The revelation that a disturbed stranger had targeted a president to gain her attention thrust Foster into a media storm, shattering the normalcy she sought as a college student.
Foster recalls the moment she first learned of the shooting with a clarity that still stings. “I was crossing the Yale campus with a friend, holding hands, just being a kid,” she says, her voice soft but steady. “Someone yelled that Reagan had been shot. I didn’t think much of it at first—my radio was broken, and I just kept going. It wasn’t until I got back to my dorm and my roommate said, ‘John,’ that it hit me. I had no idea who this Hinckley was, but I knew my world was about to fall apart.” The letters and poems Hinckley had left at her dorm, which she had dismissed as typical fan mail, suddenly took on a sinister meaning. “I’d ignored them, thinking they were just another oddball admirer. I never imagined it would lead to something so violent, so public.”
The aftermath was immediate and overwhelming. Reporters descended on Yale’s campus, turning her sanctuary into a circus. “It was like a cavalry invasion,” Foster remembers, echoing words from her 1982 Esquire essay Why Me?. “I couldn’t walk anywhere without cameras or microphones in my face. I had a bodyguard with me everywhere—classes, the dining hall, even the library. It was humiliating and terrifying.” The media frenzy wasn’t the only threat. Shortly after Hinckley’s arrest, another stalker, Edward Richardson, was apprehended with a loaded gun, planning to kill her after watching her perform in a college play. “That second weekend of the play, I found out he’d been in the audience with a weapon,” she says, her hands trembling slightly. “A bodyguard tackled me in class the next day, throwing me to the ground in front of everyone. It was mortifying, but it drove home how vulnerable I was.”
The trauma extended beyond physical safety. Foster was forced to testify in Hinckley’s 1982 trial, a closed session that required her to confront her unwitting role in his delusions. “I had to sit there, just me, the judge, the lawyers, and him,” she recounts. “He wanted me to validate his actions, to see him as some romantic figure. It was surreal and deeply unsettling.” The trial’s outcome—Hinckley’s acquittal by reason of insanity—left her “horrified,” she admits. “I felt like the system failed to protect me from the narrative he’d imposed on my life.” The public outcry over the verdict led to the 1984 Insanity Defense Reform Act, but for Foster, the damage was already done. A poem Hinckley published in the National Enquirer that year, filled with violent imagery directed at her, reignited her fears, prompting her legal team to threaten a lawsuit to suppress it.
This ordeal fundamentally altered Foster’s relationship with theater, a passion she had nurtured since childhood. At Yale, she had embraced a college production of Getting Out, seeing it as a chance to explore her craft away from Hollywood’s glare. “I loved the immediacy of live performance,” she says. “But that play became a turning point. The first weekend went well, and then, between performances, Hinckley shot Reagan. The second weekend, I was a ghost of myself—paralyzed by fear that someone else might be watching, waiting.” In her recent interview with Interview magazine alongside The Bikeriders star Jodie Comer, Foster finally acknowledged the link. “I’ve never admitted this publicly before, but that trauma stopped me from ever wanting to do theater again,” she confesses. “I convinced myself I loved watching plays, but stepping on stage felt like reliving that vulnerability. I was 18, and it stole something from me.”
The psychological toll was profound. Foster describes a sense of isolation that persisted for years. “I was this young woman trying to be a student, and suddenly I was a symbol in someone else’s deranged story,” she says. “People didn’t see me—they saw the girl from Taxi Driver or the reason behind a national tragedy. It was hard to reclaim my identity.” She withdrew from public life, canceling interviews if Hinckley’s name surfaced, a stance she maintained as recently as 1991 when she walked away from an NBC Today Show appearance over a planned mention. “I never wanted to be the actress defined by that event,” she insists. “It wasn’t my story to tell—it was his delusion forced onto me.”
Hinckley’s release from psychiatric care in 2016, followed by his unconditional freedom in June 2022, reopened old wounds. In a 2022 CBS interview, he apologized to Foster and the victims’ families, expressing remorse for actions he claimed he could barely recall. “I know they probably can’t forgive me, but I just want them to know I’m sorry,” he said. For Foster, the apology was a mixed blessing. “It’s hard to process,” she admits. “Part of me appreciates the acknowledgment, but it doesn’t erase the years of fear or the way it changed my life. I don’t hate him—I pity him. But I also don’t want to be tethered to his narrative anymore.”
Her resilience shines through in how she rebuilt her life. Foster channeled her energy into her film career, earning two Best Actress Oscars for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs, roles that allowed her to explore complex, empowered characters. She also became a director and producer, gaining control over her narrative. Yet, the shadow of 1981 lingers. “I’ve learned to live with it,” she says. “Therapy helped, and so did time. But there’s always a part of me that checks the room, that wonders who’s watching. It’s a survival instinct now.”
Foster’s story resonates as Pride Month 2025 unfolds, a time celebrating love and identity. Her experience with Hinckley, though born from his distorted obsession, underscores the darker side of fame and the need for boundaries. “I’ve always believed in living authentically,” she says, reflecting on her own coming-out moment at the 2013 Golden Globes. “But that authenticity came with a cost. I hope my story can remind others to protect their peace, no matter the spotlight.”
As the interview ends, Foster gazes out at the Los Angeles skyline, where rainbow flags flutter in the evening breeze. “I’ve survived,” she says with a small smile. “And I’ve found joy again—with my family, my work, my partner. That’s my victory.” Her words carry a quiet strength, a testament to a woman who turned trauma into triumph, even as the echoes of 1981 remain a faint, indelible mark on her journey.
