Hollywood star Charlize Theron (44), who is currently seen alongside Matthias Schoenaerts in the Netflix movie ‘The Old Guard’, did not always have such a glamorous life. Her childhood years were marked by abuse and trauma, she revealed in an interview.
Charlize grew up on a South African farm in Benoni. Her parents, Charles Theron and Gerda Maritz, were not very well off. To forget his worries, Charles reached for the bottle, but that soon resulted in a serious alcohol addiction. “My dad was a very sick man,” explains Charlize. “I always knew him one way, and it was drunk. It was really a hopeless situation. ”
Unfortunately, Charles’ addiction had an effect not only on the man himself, but also on the whole family. “We were scared of him,” said Charlize. And that fear turned out to be justified, because on June 21, 1991 the plugs completely broke through. Charles threatened Charlize and her mother with a gun. “My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk,” she recalls. “But somehow he had walked into our house with a gun at the ready. He threatened to kill us both. “
Caught in the bedroom
“My mom and I hid in my bedroom. There we both stood with our backs to the door to stop him as he tried to pound them. We had to put all our weight into the fight because he was strong. ”
Ultimately, keeping him out of the room was no longer enough. “He suddenly realized he was carrying a gun and shot through the door three times. Those bullets didn’t hit us, and that was really a miracle. But my mother saw no other way out. She took her own pistol and ended the threat to save my life. It was legal self-defense, but of course it marked us for the rest of our lives … ”The judge immediately acquitted Gerda, because she had no other choice at the time of shooting. In addition, her teenage daughter’s life was in danger.
“I’ve always been very open about my past,” Charlize continues. “Because such family violence still happens today in many families around the world. And we have to be attentive to that. We have to do something about it. ”
Theron currently has citizenship in both South Africa and the United States. She is a single mom to two adopted children: trans daughter Jackson (8) and baby daughter August. Because she wants a happy childhood for her own offspring, she does everything she can to make them feel accepted and loved. She has no problem with her oldest child being transgender. “I thought I had a baby boy,” she explains. It is the first time that she speaks openly about the fact that she apparently has not one, but two daughters. “Until Jackson looked at me at age 3 and said,” I’m not a boy. ” So yes, I have two beautiful daughters and I am happy with that. They are free to be who they are. It is not up to me to decide. ”