Charlize Theron says she is ‘not ashamed’ to talk about how her mother shot and killed her alcoholic father in self-defense. The Bombshell actress explained experiencing violence as a child and non-violent harassment as an adult in an interview with NPR.
The Prometheus starlet up on a farm near Johannesburg in South Africa with her mother Gerda and father Charles. She said her father was a ‘very sick man’ and she only ever knew him as an alcoholic.
“My father was a very sick man. My father was an alcoholic all my life. I only knew him one way, and that was as an alcoholic. … It was a pretty hopeless situation.”
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Charlize Theron explained how her father had shot through the door to the room where she and her mother had been hiding. She was 15 at the time. It was a miracle both she and her mother evaded the bullets.
“None of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle. But in self-defense, she ended the threat.”
She explained how she and her mother were barricading the door with their bodies to avoid her father’s drunken rage when she fired shots at the door.
“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,”
After the near-death experience they faced, and the death of her father, Charlize Theron explained how she and her mother came to know they’re not the only domestic abuse survivors around.
“The more we talk about these things, the more we realize we are not alone in any of it.”
She then explained that’s she’s not ashamed to talk about the experience. Rather she speaks out on the issue to raise awareness that survivors are not alone.
“The violence I’ve experienced within my family is something I share with a lot of people. 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. I think, for me, it’s just always been that this story really is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person.”
Bombshell and Personal Experiences
Speaking about her film Bombshell, the Oscar-winner spoke about how the film covers the grey areas of sexual harassment.
Having experienced violence as a child, the actress explained the struggle of harassment in its non-violent forms. Which often led it to be overlooked.
“It’s not always physical assault. It’s not always rape. There’s a psychological damage that happens for women in the everyday casualness of language, touch or threat of losing your job. Those are things I’ve definitely encountered.”
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The Devil’s Advocate actress also shared a personal experience about the time a film director inappropriately touched her after inviting her to audition at his home. She explained how angry she was with herself for not responding strictly like most people would imagine they would do.
“I was the one who apologized to him before leaving, It made me angry with myself, … I put a lot of blame on myself… that I didn’t say all the right things, like telling him to take a hike. I didn’t do all of those things that we so want to believe we’ll do in those situations.”
Interestingly, Bombshell documents how the women of Fox News came out with sexual harassment cases against then-CEO and chairman Roger Ailes.
Bombshell cast Charlise Theron as the real-life television presenter called Megyn Kelly.
