Charlize Theron Details Night Her Mom Fatally Shot Her Dad

Because her father had a history of alcoholism, Charlize said she knew he was likely down the street at his brother’s house drinking. So, they went to the home, where they found the men “pretty loaded.”

However, Charlize had to go to the bathroom, so she ran inside without saying hello to anyone, which her dad perceived as being rude.

“Big thing in South Africa, the kind of respect that you have to have for elders,” the Atomic Blonde actress explained. “And he was in a state where he just spiraled. Like: ‘Why didn’t you stop? Who do you think you are?’”

After leaving, Charlize and her mom both sensed “something was different.” And their gut feeling proved to be right when Charles came home later that evening with his brother.

“I could tell the level of anger, frustration or unhappiness by the way he drove in,” said Charlize, who had been pretending to be asleep in her bedroom. “To get to the point: 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.”

Fearing for their lives, Gerda ran to the safe to get a gun before rushing to Charlize’s bedroom for safety. “The two of us were holding the door with our bodies because there wasn’t a lock on it,” Charlize shared. “And he just stepped back and started shooting through the door. And this is the crazy thing: Not one bullet hit us.”

It wasn’t until Charles went back to the safe that Gerda emerged from the bedroom and fired off her own gun at her husband and his brother, who had also been encouraging the violent acts.

“The brother ran down the hallway, and she shot one bullet down the hallway that ricocheted seven times and shot him in the hand,” Charlize recounted. “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.”

After the fatal incident, Charlize said her mom “picked right up” and sent her to school the next day, determined to move forward together. 

And that’s exactly what they did. Charlize ended up moving to Italy to model just a year later. She has since created a successful career in the U.S. as an actress and producer, and became a mom herself to daughters Jackson, 13, and August, 10.

But Charlize is also committed to raising awareness against gender violence and sharing their story in hopes that others can learn from it.

“I think these things should be talked about because it makes other people not feel alone,” Charlize emphasized. “I never knew about a story like that. When this happened to us, I thought we were the only people. I’m not haunted by this stuff anymore.”