Charlize Theron reveals night her mother shot father in self-defense

Charlize Theron shared that she felt isolated after her mother killed her father in self-defense.

The Oscar-winning star opened up about the events leading to the deadly confrontation in 1991 and its consequences in a candid new interview with the New York Times, expressing that she believed she and her mother “were the only ones” facing such experiences.

“I believe these topics need to be discussed because it helps others feel less secluded,” she mentioned in the conversation published on Saturday.

“I’d never heard of a story like ours,” she added. “When it happened to us, I felt like we were alone. This no longer haunts me.”

The “Atomic Blonde” star, now 50, remembered she and her mother, Gerda Jacoba Aletta Martiz, visited her uncle’s house after a cinema outing and that she had angered her father, Charles Theron, by not stating her arrival before dashing to the restroom.

Theron told the New York Times she felt like she and her mother “were the only people” encountering such acts of violence. They’re depicted above in 2019. Getty Images

“I needed to use the restroom urgently,” she stated. “So I hurried into the home to use the toilet, and he interpreted that as me being impolite because I didn’t stop to greet everyone.

She continued, “It’s a big deal in South Africa, the level of respect expected for elders. And he started losing control. Like: ‘Why didn’t you stop? Who do you think you are?’”

At 15, Theron recollected leaving and asking her mom to help her avoid confronting her father later.

“I knew he was upset with me. So I asked her, ‘When he finally returns, please let him know I’m asleep,’" she narrated to the outlet.

“I went to my room, turned off my lights, and was frightened. My window overlooked the driveway, and I could sense his anger, frustration, or misery by how he drove in.” She remarked that she “just suspected something terrible would happen.”

Her father “barged into the house” and made it “clear he intended to kill us,” she recounted to the outlet. Charlize is shown above in New York City in June.

The “Fast X” actress then recounted that her father “barged into the house,” firing “through the steel doors to enter, making it clear he intended to kill us.”

Charlize remembered understanding the seriousness of the encounter, recounting her mom rushing to a secure spot to retrieve her own weapon before returning to her daughter’s room.

“We held the door shut with our bodies due to the absence of a lock,” she explained to the outlet.

“He simply stepped back and began firing through the door,” she continued, remarking that it was “astonishing” that “not a single bullet hit us.”

“The message was unmistakable: ‘I’m going to kill you tonight. Think I can’t enter this door? Watch me. I’ll go to the safe. I’ll get the shotgun,’" the actress recalled.

She also recounted both her father and uncle, who allegedly accompanied Charles, being shot. “He moved to the safe, and my mom opened the door as the uncle stood there,” Theron recounted.

“The uncle dashed down the hallway, and she fired a bullet that ricocheted several times, hitting him in the hand. It’s beyond explanation. Then she followed my father, who was already opening the safe to take out more firearms, and she shot him.”

Charlize mentioned that after the tragic event, her mother “immediately moved on.”

“The following morning, she sent me to school. She just said, ‘We’re moving forward.’ Not necessarily the healthiest approach, but it worked for us.”

The “Mad Max: Fury Road” actress said her mom wanted her “to disregard it” and “didn’t want [her] to dwell on it.”

“We didn’t have counselors back then, so in her perspective, the best remedy was, ‘Let’s move on,’” Charlize concluded. Gerda wasn’t charged — the incident was ultimately classified as self-defense.

This isn’t the first time the esteemed “Monster” actress has reflected on the “trauma” of her father’s death and gender-driven violence.

In 2019, she revealed that her father was intoxicated during the alleged incident. “My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he entered the house with a firearm,” she told NPR at that time.