She Watched Her Mom Kill Her Abusive Father But Now She’s A Hollywood Superstar
Charlize Theron has opened up once again about the life-altering night that defined much of her personal and professional journey — the night her mother fatally shot her father in self-defense.
In a recent interview with Town & Country, the Academy Award–winning actress spoke candidly about how that traumatic event shaped her views on violence and resilience. “I understand why people draw a line between that event and the work I do,” Theron said. “But it’s far more complicated than just one night of trauma.”
Now 48, the Mad Max: Fury Road star explained that gender-based violence is not limited to one family or one country. “Even without that event, gender-based violence is everywhere — in South Africa, where I grew up, and across the world,” she said. “As a woman, you can’t ignore it.”
The tragedy unfolded in 1991 in Benoni, South Africa, when Theron was only 15. Her father, Charles, returned home intoxicated and armed. “My dad was so drunk he shouldn’t have been able to stand,” she recalled in a 2019 interview. “He came into the house with a gun and started shooting through the door.”
Inside the room, Charlize and her mother, Gerda, held the door shut in fear as gunshots rang out. “He shot three times through the door,” she said. “By some miracle, not a single bullet struck us.”
Theron has described her father as “a very sick man” who struggled for years with alcoholism. “I knew him in only one way — he was always an alcoholic,” she explained. “It was a hopeless situation. Living with an addict means you wake up every day not knowing what’s coming next.”
For Theron, the unpredictability of life in such an environment left invisible wounds. “The day-to-day fear stays with you more than the violence itself,” she said. “It stays with you — something that embeds itself in you for the rest of your life.”
The events of that night became a turning point, inspiring a lifelong commitment to advocacy and empowerment.