[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Charlize Theron is reflecting on the terrifying night that changed her life forever.
Before a life of fame, the Mad Max: Fury Road star escaped a dark, deeply abusive home… thanks to her mother. In a sprawling interview with the New York Times published on Saturday, Charlize reflected on the traumatizing night when her mother Gerda Jacoba Aletta Martiz shot her father Charles Theron while he was trying to “kill” them both.
While reflecting on the abuse she and her mother suffered, the Tully actress admitted she thought they “were the only people” affected by abusive situations:
“I think these things should be talked about because it makes other people not feel alone. I never knew about a story like that. When this happened to us, I thought we were the only people. I’m not haunted by this stuff anymore.”
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On the fateful 1991 night, she and her mom had visited her uncle’s house after going to the movies. According to the Mighty Joe Young star, her father became agitated when she did not announce her arrival before heading into the bathroom.
“I had to pee really badly. So I ran into the house to get to the toilet, and he took that as me being rude, because I didn’t stop and say hello to everybody. Big thing in South Africa, the kind of respect that you have to have for elders. And he was in a state where he just spiraled. Like: ‘Why didn’t you stop? Who do you think you are?’”
Oh gosh, how scary. But things went on to get much, much more terrifying.
Charlize recalled seeking refuge in her mother once they returned home and asking her to help avoid further conflicts with her father:
“I knew he was mad at me. So I said to her, ‘When he eventually decides to come home, please tell him I’m asleep.’ I went into my room, I turned my lights off, and I was scared. My window faced the driveway, and I could tell the level of anger, frustration, or unhappiness by the way he drove in.”
What an AWFUL type of anticipation to experience. The Academy Award winner, who was just 15 years old at the time, said she “just knew something bad was going to happen.” And she wasn’t wrong. According to the Atomic Blonde star, her father “broke into the house” by shooting “through the steel doors to get in, making it very clear that he was going to kill us.”
Holy s**t.
The Monster actress recalled it really clicking how “serious” the situation had become when her mother rushed to her safe to retrieve her own handgun and then rushed into Charlize’s room:
“The two of us were holding the door with our bodies because there wasn’t a lock on it. He just stepped back and started shooting through the door.”
OMG!
Charlize acknowledged how “crazy” it was that “not one bullet hit us.” She recalled:
“The messaging was very clear: ‘I’m going to kill you tonight. You think I can’t come into this door? Watch me. I’m going to go to the safe. I’m going to get the shotgun.”
The Old Guard actress remembered her uncle accompanying her father back to the house where she and her mother were fighting for their lives — until her mother made a survive-or-die-trying decision:
“He walked to the safe, and my mom pulled the door open while the brother was still standing there. The brother ran down the hallway, and she shot one bullet down the hallway that ricocheted seven times and shot him in the hand. It’s stuff you can’t explain. And then she followed my father, who was by then opening the safe to get more weapons out, and she shot him.”
Whoa… That is some SERIOUS, frightening, traumatizing stuff.
Charlize noted her mother “picked right up” and moved on following the fatal confrontation:
“The next morning she sent me to school. She was just like, ‘We’re going to move on.’ Not necessarily the healthiest thing, but it worked for us.”
The Long Shot star noted her mother wanted her “to forget about it” and “didn’t want [her] to sit in it.”
“We didn’t have therapists around, so in her head the best therapy was, ‘We’ve got to move on.’”
It’s a miracle Charlize was able to recover from that night the way she has. In the years since, she’s been extremely vocal about gender-based violence. The 50-year-old told Town & Country in 2023:
“Gender-based violence is so in your face in South Africa and globally. It’s hard to not be aware of these things just purely by being a woman.”
In 2019, she told NPR her father was drunk the night of the shooting:
“My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun. 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.”
Her mother faced no charges as the shooting was deemed self-defense.
What are YOUR reactions to this wild story, Perezcious readers? Be sure to let us know in the comments down below.
For more information on violence against women, go to https://www.justice.gov/ovw/resources-for-survivors
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/
To learn more about the impact of gun violence, visit https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/gun-violence
[Images via Adriana M. Barraza/MEGA/WENN]
