Charlize Theron still believes this 'African witchcraft' superstition
Charlize Theron admitted that she still practises this African superstition because of “witchcraft culture”.
Charlize Theron has been living in America for more than 30 years, but it seems she hasn’t forgotten her roots or the superstitions that come with them.
The Oscar winner recently sat down with Krista Smith on the 'Skip Intro' podcast to talk about her South African upbringing.
During the interview, the 50-year-old admitted that growing up in a “witchcraft culture” left her with an “irrational fear”.
The Benoni-born star explained that she has a very specific ritual when it comes to cutting her nails.
“I have this tremendous fear that when I cut my fingernails, someone is going to take them and put a spell on me. So I’m always very adamant to cut my own fingernails and do it in the toilet, flush them down, and make sure they’re gone. It’s a stupid thing that has stayed with me,” she said.
The clip of her explanation has since gone viral and garnered quite a reaction from South Africans.
Many people took to social media to admit they follow the exact same rule.
X user @KKarjikerm tweeted: “My mom had us do this, and we all still do it!” while another user, @FootballFemmes, posted: “Legit still have this irrational fear as well. Very South African-coded.”
@netflixtudum Charlize Theron will not be hexed. She has a system. 😭
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Charlize Theron opens up about the night her mom killed her dad
South African-born actress Charlize Theron is opening up about the night that changed her life forever.
The 50-year-old Hollywood star recounted how family abuse shaped her future and her approach to life in a new interview with The New York Times.
She left South Africa in the early 1990s after a traumatic childhood experience turned her world upside down.
Her mother, Gerda, acting in self-defence, shot her father, Charles Theron, after he drunkenly threatened her.
Charlize’s father was an alcoholic, and she learned “pretty young” what substance abuse can do to people. It scared her at first, but eventually it became a normal part of her family life.
“My dad had built this big bar inside the house. That wasn’t unusual. A lot of South Africans create a space in their house where they can drink,” she told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of The Interview.
“But it became where he lived.” The Devil’s Advocate actress said her dad was a “full-blown functioning drunk”. He would sometimes go missing and return home in a “pretty severe state”.
“It would get messy and loud, and my mom’s not a wallflower either. She wasn’t just sitting and taking it. She made it known that she wasn’t happy about his lifestyle. So it really caused a lot of verbal abuse.”
“Personally, for me, the worst thing was they would ice each other. There would be a big fight, and then they wouldn’t talk for three weeks. I didn’t have siblings, and that house just went silent.”
Her father was verbally abusive towards her, but he was not physically violent.
“He was scary,” Charlize said. “There was a lot of verbal abuse, a lot of threatening language that just became normal.”
A few years before the shooting, Gerda mentioned “divorce” for the first time.
She had been married to Charles for 25 years, but had reached her breaking point. As a child, Charlize struggled to come to terms with the idea.
“We didn’t know people who were divorced. My parents weren’t religious, but culturally it was one of those things you didn’t do... I was almost talking her back into staying, because the alternative felt so foreign to me.”
Then came the night that the life she had known as “normal” for so many years came to a dramatic end.
Charlize and her mother returned home that night after watching a movie.
They had trouble getting into their home because her mother couldn’t unlock one of the doors.
“Every room in our house had a steel door. So if you got through the front door, the kitchen had a steel door that you had to unlock, because that’s the kind of violence we were living in. Our country was on the brink of civil war. So my mom couldn’t get through the first lock,” she said.
Her father was drinking at his brother’s house a few streets away, and they decided to go there. When they arrived at her uncle’s house, Charlize needed to use the toilet, so she dashed inside without greeting anyone.
“He took that as me being rude because I didn’t stop and say hello to everybody. It’s a big thing in South Africa — the kind of respect you’re expected to show elders.”
She returned home with her mother, but something felt different.
“When we got home, I sat down with my mom and said: ‘I think you’re right. I think you should separate from him.’ I had never imagined those words would come out of my mouth. Leaving that house, I knew something was different. She knew it too,” she recalled.
Her father returned home with his brother, and he was angry.
“The way he drove into that property that night, I can’t explain it to you. I just knew something bad was going to happen...
“He finally broke into the house. He shot through the steel doors to get in, making it very clear that he was going to kill us.”
Both Charlize and Gerda tried to hold the bedroom door shut with their bodies because it did not have a lock.
“And he just stepped back and started shooting through the door. And this is the crazy thing: not one bullet hit us. It’s insane when you think about it that way.”
Gerda went into protective-mom mode. She fired back.
“The brother ran down the hallway, and she shot one bullet down the hallway that ricocheted seven times and shot him in the hand. It’s stuff you can’t explain. And then she followed my father, who was by then opening the safe to get more weapons out, and she shot him.”
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