“I think these things should be talked about because it makes other people not feel alone,” the actress said

Charlize Theron is opening up about the night her father was shot and killed by her mother in self-defense when she was a teen.

In a new interview with The New York Times Magazine, published on Saturday, April 18, the Old Guard 2 actress, 50, recounted the harrowing incident and explained why she isn’t “haunted” by it today.

Charlize shared that her father, Charles Theron, drunkenly threatened her and her mother, Gerda, at their home in South Africa in 1991 when she was 15 years old.

She said the incident began when her father became angry at her when she entered her uncle’s house without greeting him. Her father was there drinking with his brother at the time.

“I had to pee really badly. So I ran into the house to get to the toilet, and he took that as me being rude, because I didn’t stop and say hello to everybody,” Charlize explained. “Big thing in South Africa, the kind of respect that you have to have for elders. And he was in a state where he just spiraled. Like: ‘Why didn’t you stop? Who do you think you are?’ “

The Mad Max: Fury Road star and her mother then went back home. As soon as they walked into the house, Charlize told her mother, “I think you should separate from him,” as this was the latest of numerous incidents involving her dad. “Leaving that house, I knew something was just different. She knew it, too,” she explained.

That night, Charlize asked her mother to say she was sleeping to avoid a confrontation with her father when he returned home.

“I went into my room, I turned my lights off, and I was scared,” she told the Times. “My window faced the driveway, and I could tell the level of anger, frustration or unhappiness by the way he drove in. The way that he drove into that property that night, I can’t explain it to you. I just knew something bad was going to happen.”

Her father then “broke into the house” by shooting through the steel doors, common in South Africa at the time “because that’s the kind of violence that we were living in,” Charlize said, explaining, “Our country was on the brink of civil war.”

“He shot through the steel doors to get in, making it very clear that he was going to kill us. His brother was with him as well,” she recounted. “We knew it was serious, and so by the time he broke into the first gate, my mom ran to the safe to get her gun. She came into my bedroom. The two of us were holding the door with our bodies because there wasn’t a lock on it. And he just stepped back and started shooting through the door.”

“And this is the crazy thing: Not one bullet hit us,” she continued. “It’s insane when you think about it that way. But the messaging was very clear. I’m going to kill you tonight. You think I can’t come into this door? Watch me. I’m going to go to the safe. I’m going to get the shotgun.”

“He walked to the safe, and my mom pulled the door open while the brother was still standing there,” Charlize said. “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.”

Charlize Theron spoke about one of the most traumatic moments of her life, revisiting the night her mother shot and killed her father in self-defense with striking clarity and emotional honesty.

Speaking in a recent conversation with The New York Times’ The Interview, the Oscar-winning star reflected on the events that unfolded when she was just 15 years old, offering a deeply personal account that still resonates decades later.

The night began in an almost ordinary way, Charlize and her mother had just returned home from a movie, only to find the steel door to their house locked, a stark reminder of the environment they were living in at the time.

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“Every room in our house had a steel door … because that’s the kind of violence that we were living in” she explained. “Our country was on the brink of civil war.”

Instead of forcing their way in, the pair went to her uncle’s home, where her father was drinking, something she described as not unusual. But even then, something felt different.

On the drive home, Charlize found herself saying something she had never voiced before: urging her mother to leave him.

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“I had never imagined that those words would come out of my mouth,” she recalled. “Leaving that house, I knew something was just different. She knew it, too.”

That sense of unease followed her into the night. “I went to bed thinking something bad was going to happen,” she said.

Her fears were soon realised. According to Charlize, her father later broke into the house and began firing through the steel doors, making his intentions terrifyingly clear.

“He made it very clear that he was going to kill us,” she said.

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Mother and daughter hid in Charlize’s bedroom, desperately bracing themselves against the door as bullets tore through it. In what she still describes as extraordinary, neither of them was hit.

“And this is the crazy thing: Not one bullet hit us.” As the situation escalated and her father moved to retrieve more weapons, her mother made a split-second decision that would change their lives forever.

© AFP via Getty Images

“She shot one bullet down the hallway” Charlize said, noting it struck her uncle in the hand, “and then she followed my father … and she shot him.”

In the years since, Charlize has spoken candidly about the trauma she experienced, choosing not to let it define her, but instead to use it as a way to connect with others who have faced violence and loss. “I think these things should be talked about,” she said. “It makes other people not feel alone.”