Charlize Theron looks back on his difficult upbringing in South Africa.
“I have memories of when I was young, seeing people who were really drunk, and it scared me,” Theron, 50, said. The New York Times in a profile published Saturday, April 17. “Like, people crawling around drunk. That changed to every Friday, Saturday, maybe every Wednesday. My father built this big bar inside the house.”
Theron also said that her father, Charles“he was a full-time alcoholic.”
“He had times when he got lost, we didn’t know where he was and he often came back in a very difficult situation,” said the actor. “It would be messy and noisy, and my mother is not a wallflower either. She didn’t just sit back and hold back. She made it known that she wasn’t happy with the way she was living. So, it actually caused a lot of verbal abuse.”
He went on to say, “For me, what upset me the most was that they would argue.
Theron’s mother, Gerdashe shot and killed her husband in 1991 in self-defense. Theron was 15 at the time.
While talking to The TimesTheron clarified that her father was not violent towards her.
“He was afraid, he didn’t hit me, he didn’t throw me against the wall, but he was doing things like drunk driving,” she said. “There was a lot of verbal abuse, and threatening language that became normal.”
According to Theron, her mother even enrolled her in boarding school so she could “get [Theron] outside the house.”
“She knew exactly what she was doing to me,” Theron told the outlet. “All the memories are there, and it’s not that I don’t try and think about it, but going straight, it’s almost more clear when you talk this way. Because people tend to isolate you and want to talk about one thing. It helps to explain that these things build, and they build, and it takes years for things to go wrong like it did in my house.”
Theron eventually left South Africa at the age of 16 to pursue a modeling career in Europe.
“I was very well equipped. I knew how to take care of myself. That’s what my mother instilled in me, my way of life instilled in me, my country did,” he said. “She can cook, sew. I knew more than my children will ever know about taking care of themselves. I knew I was going to be able to survive, and I had this real machine. I was very determined to do this on my own and not fail, because I didn’t want to go back.
After Theron found success in Hollywood, she adopted daughters Jackson and August in 2012 and 2015, respectively.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
