Charlize Theron Recalls Night Her Mom Killed Her Dad In Self-Defense
Dec. 17 2019, Published 12:24 p.m. ET
Charlize Theron opened up about a dark time in her life: when her mom killed her dad in self-defense.
Speaking to NPR, the Bombshell actress, 44, recalled the day, in June 1991, when her father, Charles Theron, walked into the house drunk and threatened her and her mother, Gerda, with a gun.
“My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun,” Charlize said. “My mom and I were in my bedroom leaning against the door because he was trying to push through the door.”
Theron was just 15 at the time of the incident.
“So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push through. He took a step back and just shot through the door three times,” she continued. “None of the bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle.”
Acting fast to save herself and her daughter, Gerda shot her husband.
“But in self-defense, she ended the threat,” Charlize stated.
Gerda was not charged due to the nature of the case.
RadarOnline.com readers know the actress has long spoken of her tight bond with her mother. Apart from taking her to Hollywood events as her date, she regularly gushes about her when speaking of her upbringing.
“I am lucky enough that I had a great mom who really kind of made me brave and always told me to be brave,” she said at Elle‘s 2018 Women in Hollywood event. “I don’t know who I might have been without that.”
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While Charlize admitted to NPR that she wishes her father had not died in such a tragic way, she explained that he was always a “very sick man.”
“I only knew him one way, and that was as an alcoholic,” she said. “It was a pretty hopeless situation. Our family was just kind of stuck in it. And the day-to-day unpredictability of living with an addict is the thing that you sit with and have kind of embedded in your body for the rest of your life, more than just this one event of what happened one night.”
The Oscar-winner did not shy away from speaking of her troubled childhood.
“I think our family was an incredibly unhealthy one. And all of it, I think, scarred us in a way,” she said. “Of course, I wish what happened that night would have never happened. It’s unfortunately what happens when you don’t get to the root of these issues.”
Due to the incident, Charlize is now passionate about helping solve domestic violence.
“I’m not ashamed to talk about it, because I do think that the more we talk about these things, the more we realize we are not alone in any of it,” she added. “I think, for me, it’s just always been that this story is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person.”