John Hinckley Jr. Sends Message to Jodie Foster Decades After Trying to Kill Reagan to Impress Her

John Hinckley Jr. is speaking publicly about Jodie Foster again, more than four decades after he shot President Ronald Reagan in an attempt to impress the actress.

In a rare interview with the Mark Joseph Show, an exclusive preview of which was published by Entertainment Weekly, Hinckley was asked if he had anything he wanted to say to Foster.

His answer was brief. “I just wish Jodie Foster well, you know,” Hinckley said. “I don’t really see her movies, but I wish her well, and I know she’s doing quite well. And that’s all I can say is just, I wish Jodie well, and I hope she has a good life.”

Hinckley was 25 when he opened fire outside the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981, after Reagan had finished speaking to members of the AFL-CIO. Four people were shot, including Reagan, White House press secretary James Brady, police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy.

Reagan was wounded when a bullet ricocheted off the president’s limousine and struck him under the arm. Hinckley later said that his actions were connected to his obsession with Foster, who was 18 at the time. He had become fixated on her after watching the 1976 film Taxi Driver, in which Foster played a young prostitute.

According to Hinckley, he believed that carrying out an assassination attempt would impress Foster and eventually lead to a relationship with her. During the new interview, he was asked what he had hoped would happen after the shooting.

“I wanted to have a union with Jodie Foster and live the rest of my life with her and all these things that, of course, were delusional,” Hinckley said. “But I was believing those things at the time, so the best outcome would have been a union with Jodie Foster.”

He also explained that he imagined Foster might eventually come to him, regardless of whether he ended up in prison or a hospital. “I thought she would, you know, after things settled down, join me wherever I was,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if I was gonna be in jail or the hospital or what after things settled down. I had this notion that she was gonna join me wherever I was.”

Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982 and spent more than three decades in psychiatric care. He was released from court supervision in 2022. Foster has previously spoken about the lasting impact of the incident. In a 2024 interview with PEOPLE, she recalled the fear and trauma surrounding the shooting, explaining that Hinckley had also written letters to her.

“I’m finally able to admit that the one bit of theater I did when I was in college, there was so much trauma involved in it,” Foster said.

The new interview once again brings attention to one of the most disturbing chapters in Foster’s early career and the events that connected her name to the attempted assassination of a U.S. president.

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