'My father was a very sick man' - Charlize Theron details moment her mother shot and killed her father
Charlize Theron was 15 when her alcoholic father was shot and killed by her mother in self-defense.
In a recent interview with NPR, Theron opened up about her experiences with family violence.
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The 47-year-old actress said that she is "not ashamed" to talk about the traumatic incident, because she wants to shed a light on domestic violence.
Theron's "unhealthy" childhood environment has been well publicized over the past decade and in her recent interview she noted that the more people talk about these things, "the more we realize we are not alone in any of it."
Theron explained to NPR that on the night of his death, her "alcoholic" father had fired three shots at Charlize and her mother, and even though neither of them was hit by the bullets, her mother acted in self-defense.
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The star recalled: "My father was a very sick man. My father was an alcoholic all my life. I only knew him one way, and that was as an alcoholic ... It was a pretty hopeless situation. Our family was just kind of stuck in it."
The day-to-day unpredictability of living with an addict is the thing that you sit with and have embedded in your body for the rest of your life, more than just this one event of what happened one night.
The South African-born actress says the violence she experienced as a child is something that she shares with a lot of people.
"My father was so drunk that he shouldn't have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun. My mom and I were in my bedroom leaning against the door because he was trying to push through the door. So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push through. He took a step back and just shot through the door three times. None of those bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle. But in self-defense, she ended the threat," she added.
The subject of sexual harassment and abuse is something that she tackles in her latest film 'Bombshell' - in which she plays a real TV presenter called Megyn Kelly.
Watch below: