{"id":42787,"date":"2026-08-13T08:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42787"},"modified":"2026-08-13T08:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:46:36","slug":"john-hinckley-jr-who-shot-ronald-reagan-to-impress-jodie-foster-says-he-wishes-her-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=42787","title":{"rendered":"John Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, says he wishes her well"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit_1500w\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260812-John-Hinckley-Jr-jodie-foster-ew-1149a-2533f0.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-5c92c4\" class=\"body-graf\">John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, spoke out about the Academy Award-winning actor more than four decades after the assassination attempt.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e764e4\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cI just wish Jodie Foster well, you know,\u201d Hinckley said Wednesday on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k8-m4mm3dnw\" target=\"_blank\">podcast \u201cThe Mark Joseph Show.\u201d<\/a> \u201cI don\u2019t really see her movies, but I wish her well, and I know she\u2019s doing quite well. And that\u2019s all I can say is just, I wish Jodie well, and I hope she has a good life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f33aa9\" class=\"body-graf\">Hinckley, now 71, shot Reagan as the president was leaving the Washington Hilton in 1981. Reagan survived the assassination attempt, but former White House press secretary James Brady was paralyzed in the shooting, and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy and Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty were injured. Brady died in 2014.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-203e0d\" class=\"body-graf\">Hinckley said at the time that he thought shooting the president would impress Foster, who was then 18 years old. Foster rose to fame as a teenager, playing a child prostitute in Martin Scorsese\u2019s 1976 film \u201cTaxi Driver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-98f59c\" class=\"body-graf\">Representatives for Foster, best known for her role in \u201cThe Silence of the Lambs,\u201d did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-32230d\" class=\"body-graf\">Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent several decades in a psychiatric hospital. In 2016, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/john-hinckley-freed-mental-hospital-35-years-after-reagan-assassination-n646076\" target=\"_blank\">he was <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/john-hinckley-freed-mental-hospital-35-years-after-reagan-assassination-n646076\" target=\"_blank\">released<\/a> and allowed to live with his elderly mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, under conditions that included attending therapy and restrictions on where he could travel. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f35628\" class=\"body-graf\">A federal judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/john-hinckley-get-full-freedom-41-years-shooting-ronald-reagan-rcna31487\" target=\"_blank\">granted him full freedom<\/a> from court oversight in 2022. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said at the time that Hinckley had shown no symptoms of active mental illness, no violent behavior and no interest in weapons since 1983.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d89f8c\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">Hinckley was 25 when he shot Reagan in front of the Hilton Hotel. That same hotel was in the news again for another presidential assassination attempt in April, after a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/live-blog\/live-updates-suspect-custody-gunfire-white-house-correspondents-dinner-rcna342157\" target=\"_blank\"> gunman charged through security<\/a> at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner. The incident was the third attempt on President Donald Trump\u2019s life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster, spoke out about the Academy Award-winning actor more than four decades after the assassination attempt. \u201cI just wish Jodie Foster well, you know,\u201d Hinckley said Wednesday on the podcast \u201cThe Mark Joseph Show.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t really see her&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-08\/260812-John-Hinckley-Jr-jodie-foster-ew-1149a-2533f0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}