Charlize Theron’s new movie Bombshell is about to be released in the US, and many are expecting a heated discussion following its premiere as the film will be about a story of several women exposing former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Speaking to NPR, the South African actress opened up not only about her own experience of sexual harassment, but also about the tragic night when her father was killed by her mother.
“My father was a very sick man”, Theron shared with NPR’s host Terry Gross in a podcast interview. “My father was an alcoholic all my life. I only knew him one way, and that was as an alcoholic”.
Theron said that it was a “hopeless situation” for her family, having a great impact on her life, and culminated in a great tragedy on a June night in 1991.
“I wish what happened that night would've never happened”, the 44-year-old actress said. “It's unfortunately what happens when you don't get to the root of these issues. My father was so drunk that he shouldn't have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun”.
She then explained that she and her mum Gerda leaned against the bedroom door in order to prevent him from entering the room, but this only made him to take a step back and fire the gun thought the door at them.
“And so both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push through. And he took a step back and just shot through the door three times. And neither one of those - none of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle”.
Theron’s mother then retrieved her own handgun and killed her father, which she was not charged for in the end.
“But in self-defense, she ended the threat. And this is a story that I have, you know, shared with a lot of people”, Theron said. The actress also admitted that she really believed she could have died that night.
“I knew it. The fear and the threat was there before anything actually took place that would inform me - that there was a threat. I remember just hearing his car drive into the driveway. And I just knew something bad was going to happen. My body just knew”, Theron recalled.
Theron, who is a mother of two adopted children, moved to the United States in the 1990s and was granted citizenship in 2007, with her mum Gerda also permanently moving to America about 15 years ago.
