Jodie Foster Opens Up About 'Traumatic Moment' Following Reagan Assassination Attempt

Jodie Foster revealed that trauma led to her to shelve doing theater not long after a stalker, John Hinckley Jr., looked to impress her by attempting to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Foster — in a conversation with Jodie Comer for Interview Magazine — admitted that she dealt with “so much trauma” when she performed in a Yale University production of “Getting Out” around the time of the shooting.

The assassination attempt wounded Reagan and three others including White House press secretary James Brady, who later died of his injuries.

“The play happened in two weekends, and I did the first weekend, and in between the first weekend and the second weekend, John Hinckley shot the president,” the two-time Oscar winner explained.

She referred to the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt by Hinckley, who was freed from court oversight in 2022, as a “big moment” in her life.

Foster said the world “fell apart” as she encountered Secret Service members, had bodyguards and “had to be taken to a safe house.”

“I had the dumb idea of ‘the show must go on.’ So I was like, ‘I have to do that second weekend,’” said Foster, who had just turned 18 at the time.

The “Taxi Driver” star, in a 1982 piece for Esquire, wrote that she wasn’t sure who she was “trying to impress” by doing the performances and she previously swore not to do theater during school in order to be “anonymous.”

She told Comer that she spotted people and cameras “everywhere” in the crowd before landing her eyes on a man who attended a previous performance.

Foster has previously described the man’s “emotionless stare” at the time and exuding something untrustworthy about him, so she focused her attention on him as she delivered a profane line.