When her father came home, he was out of control, hurling threats at Charlize and her mother, his anger boiling over into violence. Then, he grabbed a gun.
”My mom and I were in my bedroom, leaning against the door because he was trying to push through,” Charlize told NPR and continued:
”None of the bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle,” Charlize added.
As he fired at them, Charlize’s mother, Gerda, had no choice. She reached for her own handgun, pulled the trigger and shot her husband. It was an act of survival.
The courts ruled it self-defense — Gerda faced no charges — but the trauma of that night would stay with Charlize forever.
”Skinny legs, big belly”
Charlize once described her father as a towering man with “skinny legs and a big belly,” someone who could be serious but also had a deep love for laughter and life.
However, she acknowledged that he struggled with alcoholism.
“My dad was a big guy, tall, skinny legs, big belly,” Theron said. “[He] could be very serious but loved to laugh as well, and enjoyed life. He also had a disease. He was an alcoholic.”
While she clarified that he never physically hurt her, she admitted, ”he was a verbal abuser.”
”This family violence, this kind of violence that happens within the family, is something that I share with a lot of people.”
“I’m not ashamed to talk about it, because I do think that the more we talk about these things, the more we realize we are not alone in any of it,” she continued. ”I think, for me, it’s just always been that this story is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person.”
