John Hinkley Jr. Shot President Reagan to Impress Jodie Fost

[Tennesseer]

Interesting article penned by Jodi Foster in 1982 regarding John Hinckley's obsession with her and her life after Hinckley shot President Reagan.

John Hinkley Jr. Shot President Reagan to Impress Jodie Foster. She Wrote Her Only Response for Esquire.

This article originally appeared in the December 1982 issue of Esquire when Jodie Foster, 20, was a junior at Yale. The previous spring and summer she worked as an intern at Esquire, which coincided with John Hinkley’s trial for attempting to assassinate President Reagan. There, he revealed his obsession with Foster and confessed that he shot the president to impress her. At the end of the summer, Foster wrote the following essay. “Why Me?” is a frank and gracefully written attempt at coming to grips with the bizarre and difficult events of the past few years of her life. It remains an invaluable account of an unfathomable situation.

My brothers and sisters called me Load because of the extraordinary capacity of my diapers. Apart from that fact and a few distinguishing details here and there, my vision of myself was pretty average. Not average so-so; just average... bacon and eggs, Volkswagens, southern California sun. Sometimes, though, I look back at my life, at the way it has slowly assumed shape and color, at the places I’ve seen and the flickers of people I’ve met, and wonder, Why? Why me? Why, when the lists were made and the heads counted, was I always chosen? Why did I always find the chocolate basket on Easter morning? Mostly the applause felt good; damn wonderful, even.

To this day I still redden and warm when someone compliments my work or asks me for a date. We all need huge amounts of love, some more than others. But there are times now when a very small child creeps up within me and desperately moans, “Why?” This is the “why” of the romantic, the idealist, the vulnerable, the pure. This is the “why” of the struggling woman-child scribbling down explanations, sensations, incantations in the night. This is the “why” of poetry, when a phrase bursts through and pierces my control. A balloon slowly deflates over a calm pasture. This is the “why” they never saw, they never see, they never will see. This is my “why,” my final and ultimate cry. This one’s for me.

My summer of 1980 was spent in anticipation of what I was “going to be,” how I was going to walk into the framework of the Ivy League. I bought a good deal of Lacoste clothing, pumped my three-pound dumbbells each morning, played tennis in the afternoon. I wanted to be the kind of girl who’s friendly, well-liked, social. To a point, you could say that that’s anonymity—the need to be wholly accepted as an equal and yet respected for the product of your efforts. Maybe I was kidding myself. Maybe I was trying to escape from what I felt was an undeserved image. In any case, I found myself, backpack in hand, playing “Muffin” in a world I knew nothing about.

Complete article here: link