Charlize Theron recalled feeling alone after her mother fatally shot her father in self defense.
The Academy Award winning actress detailed the lead up to the fatal 1991 encounter — and its aftermath — during a raw new interview with the New York Times, divulging that she thought she and her mother “were the only people” affected by such incidents.
“I think these things should be talked about because it makes other people not feel alone,” she told the outlet in the interview published on Saturday.
“I never knew about a story like that,” she continued. “When this happened to us, I thought we were the only people. I’m not haunted by this stuff anymore.”
The “Atomic Blonde” actress, now 50, recalled she and her mother, Gerda Jacoba Aletta Martiz, had visited her uncle’s home after going to a movie — and that she’d upset her father, Charles Theron, by not announcing her arrival before rushing into the bathroom.
The “Atomic Blonde” actress, now 50, recalled she and her mother, Gerda Jacoba Aletta Martiz, had visited her uncle’s home after going to a movie — and that she’d upset her father, Charles Theron, by not announcing her arrival before rushing into the bathroom.
She also recalled that both her father and uncle, who had allegedly accompanied Charles, were shot. “He walked to the safe, and my mom pulled the door open while the brother was still standing there,” Theron said.
“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.”
Charlize said following the deadly incident, her mother “picked right up” and moved on.
“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 “Mad Max: Fury Road” star said 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,’” Charlize concluded. Gerda faced no charges — the shooting was ultimately ruled as self-defense.
This isn’t the first time the celebrated “Monster” actress has reflected on the “trauma” of her father’s death and gender-based violence.
“Gender-based violence is so in your face in South Africa and globally,” she told Town & Country magazine in 2023. “It’s hard to not be aware of these things just purely by being a woman.”
In 2019, she divulged that her father had been inebriated during the alleged encounter. “My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun,” she told NPR at the time.
“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.”
