Charlize Theron is opening up again about one of the most traumatic nights of her life, and this time she is making one thing painfully clear: her mother acted because they were in real danger.
In a new interview, the Oscar winner reflected on the night her mother fatally shot her father when Theron was just 15. It is a story that has followed her for years, but now the ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ star says she is no longer haunted by it. Instead, she wants people to talk more openly about trauma so others do not feel isolated by what they have lived through.
“I think these things should be talked about because it makes other people not feel alone,” Theron said. “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.”
Charlize Theron Says Her Mother Saved Their Lives
Theron described the terrifying chain of events that led up to the shooting, saying her father, who struggled with alcoholism, became enraged after she did not greet him properly when she and her mother stopped by her uncle’s house after a movie.
Later that night, she already sensed danger before he even came home. “I was scared,” she said, explaining that she could often tell his state of mind by the way he drove into the property. “The way that he drove into that property that night, I can’t explain it to you. I just knew something bad was going to happen.”
What happened next still reads like a nightmare. Theron said her father arrived with his brother, broke into the house, and used firearms to get through the home’s security barriers. “He shot through the steel doors to get in, making it very clear that he was going to kill us,” she recalled.
She and her mother tried to hold her bedroom door shut with their bodies. Then, she said, he opened fire. “He just stepped back and started shooting through the door,” Theron said. “Not one bullet hit us.”
Why Charlize Theron Says She Is No Longer Haunted
Theron said her mother then got her gun and shot both Theron’s uncle and father, killing her father before he could reach more weapons. Looking back, the actress says the meaning of that night became clearer with time.
“I realized that she saved my life,” Theron said. “Which is a big thing.”
She also revealed that her mother refused to let the family stay emotionally stuck in what had happened. “She wanted me to forget about it,” Theron said. “She didn’t want me to sit in it.” There were no therapists around, and her mother believed the best option was to keep moving forward.
That approach may not have been perfect, but Theron says it worked for them. It also changed their bond forever. “We felt like a team,” she said of her relationship with her mother.
Now, Theron appears to be speaking from a very different place. The pain is still part of her story, but so is survival, and so is the woman who, in her eyes, made sure she lived long enough to tell it.
Theron will next appear in the survival thriller ‘Apex’, which hits Netflix on April 24. She is also set to appear in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ as Calypso.
