At that time, the actress was only 15 years old.
Charlize Theron recalled her difficult childhood in South Africa and the major traumatic event that shaped her life. In 1991, when the actress was 15, her heavily alcoholic father opened fire in their home. Her mother, forced to defend her daughter, killed him.
“When it happened to us, I thought we were the only ones this had happened to,” Theron shared in an interview with the New York Times, claiming that now, at 50, she has already gotten rid of these ghosts of the past.
Charlize recounts how it all began with an innocent visit to her uncle’s house. According to the actress, she and her mother were returning from a movie, but couldn’t get in because her father had taken the key. Looking for the head of the family, who drank heavily and frequently, they went to his brother’s house. And, of course, they found him there drinking.
“I really needed to go to the bathroom. I ran into the house to go…” the star recalls rushing straight to the bathroom without even having time to say hello.
Charles Theron considered his daughter’s behavior to be “rude.”
In South Africa, it’s very important to show respect to your elders, explains Charlize.
For the rest of the evening, Charles “was in such a state that he was just losing it.” Theron recalled him pestering her with questions: “Why didn’t you stop? Are you in charge here?” On the way home, Charlize asked her mother to smooth things over.
I knew he was mad at me. So I told my mom, “When he finally decides to come home, please tell him I’m sleeping.”
Theron recalled feeling “terrified” even after she returned home. She went into her room and turned off the light to make it look like she was sleeping.
My window overlooked the driveway, and I could tell the level of his anger, irritation, or displeasure by the way he drove up. I just knew something bad was going to happen.
Indeed, Charles wasn’t just angry, he was also armed. He fired a shot at the house’s steel door, “making it clear he intended to kill.” When Charlize’s mother, Gerda, realized how “serious” the situation had become, she, according to the actress, rushed to the safe for her pistol.
“She came into my bedroom. We were both pressed against the door because there was no lock,” Theron recalls, noting that her father made his intentions clear when he “just stepped back and started shooting through the door.” “And it’s crazy: not a single bullet hit us.”
Theron claims his father’s message was crystal clear. As Charles ran to the safe to get another shotgun, Gerda opened the bedroom door and saw his brother running away from her down the hallway.
She fired into the hallway, the bullet ricocheted seven times, hitting him in the arm. Then she followed my father, who was opening the safe to get more guns, and shot him.
Charles Theron died from his injuries, but Gerda was later found to have fired in self-defense and was not charged.
Speaking about her horrific experience, the actress noted that domestic violence was commonplace in South African society, with society turning a blind eye to the verbal abuse she and her mother suffered at the hands of her father.
Women are truly treated very, very unfairly, even in our country. No one takes their situation seriously. And I don’t think anyone took my mother seriously.
She added that the culture of drinking among men made it possible to overlook her father’s behavior because many other men also drank heavily.
I have memories of being very little and seeing very drunk people, it scared me – people crawling on the floor in a drunken stupor.
Theron, who years ago described her father as an alcoholic, recalled that after a drinking binge, he would “disappear” and then return “in a pretty bad state.”
He was scary. He didn’t hit me or throw me against the wall, but he did things like drink and drive. He insulted me a lot, threatened me, and it became the norm.
After the shooting, Theron says her mother was determined not to let what happened affect their lives.
The next morning, she sent me off to school. She simply said, “We’ll move on.” She wanted me to forget about it. She didn’t want me to dwell on it. We didn’t have therapists, so the best therapy for her was, “We need to move on.”
Theron, who left South Africa just a year later to start anew, said the incident “caused me a lot of shame because everyone knew.”
“I felt like the kids were treating me with disdain,” she said, adding that “the only time I was aggressive” was when she confronted a girl at school who made fun of her for seeing her late father drunk.
When Theron turned 16, she and her mother traveled to Europe, where she began her modeling career. After initial success, she moved to New York to enroll in the Joffrey Ballet School, but a knee injury prevented her from becoming a professional ballerina. In 1994, she moved to Los Angeles on her own, hoping to break into the film industry. There, she was discovered by a talent agent who witnessed her altercation with a bank teller.
I was fully prepared. I knew how to take care of myself. My mother taught me that, my lifestyle taught me that, my country taught me that. You know how to cook, you know how to sew. I knew more about taking care of myself than my children will ever know when they grow up. I knew I could survive, and I had real fire in my veins. I was determined to do it myself and not fail, because I didn’t want to go back.
After achieving success in Hollywood, Theron became a mother to adopted children, Jackson and Augusta.
