Charlize Theron reveals trauma of alcoholic father shot dead by her mother
Charlize Theron is facing a wave of eccentric people trolling online about her openness about enjoying alcohol. RadarOnline.com can reveal, after she spoke candidly about the trauma of growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father who was later shot dead by her mother in self-defense.
The 50-year-old Oscar-winning actress has long spoken about her complex relationship with alcohol, shaped by a childhood in South Africa marked by anxiety, instability and her father Charles’ alcoholism.
Theron was just 15 in 1991 when her mother, Gerda Jacoba Aletta Martiz, now in her 70s, fatally shot her father in a violent confrontation later ruled as self-defense.
In a recent, poignantly honest interview with the NY timesTheron has reflected on those experiences – but her separate admission that she drinks socially has sparked brutal criticism and confusion online. Theron used her recent conversation to talk about her past with striking honesty, recalling the environment she grew up in.
She said: “I have memories of when I was very young, seeing people really drunk, and it scared me. People crawling on the ground drunk. It became so consistent that it was every Friday, Saturday and maybe even every Wednesday.”
Sources close to the actress said the response she has received is deeply frustrating given the nuance of her experience.
An insider said: ‘There’s a real misunderstanding about what she shared. Charlize doesn’t glorify alcohol – she’s honest about living with trauma while still having a healthy, controlled relationship with it. The trolling feels cruel because it ignores everything she experienced as a child.
“People are cruelly asking why she drinks when her father inflicted such atrocities on her family because of drinking. It’s one of the most bizarre trolls ever.”
Theron has said, “I’m not an alcoholic and I don’t swear much. Do I? Just because I fall doesn’t mean I’m drunk.” She also joked about using what she called “acting juice” during rehearsals Young adultand more recently expressed interest in participating in a “day drinking” segment with Seth Meyers.
Friends say the criticism has brought back painful memories of her upbringing, which she says was dominated by fear and unpredictability.
She said of her father’s drinking: “My father had built a big bar in the house. He had times where he would go missing, we wouldn’t know where he was, and he would usually come back in a condition that was quite serious. It would get messy and loud, and my mother is not a wallflower either. She wasn’t just sitting there eating. She made it known that she wasn’t happy with his lifestyle. So it really caused a lot of verbal abuse.”
Another source said: “What people are missing is that Charlize has dealt with trauma about her father her entire life. Her relationship with alcohol is not reckless – it is informed, intentional and shaped by everything she experienced growing up.”
Theron has also spoken about the emotional toll of her parents’ relationship, particularly the silence that followed conflict.
She said: “Personally, the worst thing for me was that my mother and father would freeze each other. There would be a big fight and then they wouldn’t talk for three weeks. I had no siblings, and that house just went silent.”
Recalling the night her father died, Theron described the fear she felt as events escalated.
The movie star recalled: “I had to pee really bad. So I ran into the house to go to the toilet, and he took it as rude because I didn’t stop to say hello to everyone. Big thing in South Africa, the kind of respect you have to have for the elderly. And he was in a state where he just spiraled.
“Like, ‘Why didn’t you stop? Who do you think you are?’ I knew he was angry with me. So I said to (my mother), ‘If he finally decides to come home, please tell him I’m sleeping.’ I went to my room, turned off my lights and I got scared.”
She added: “My window looked out onto the driveway and I could see the level of anger, frustration or unhappiness in the way he drove in.” Theron also said she “just knew something bad was going to happen.”
The actress described how her father forced entry and shot, adding: “We were holding the door with our bodies because there was no lock on it. He just stepped back and started shooting through the door.”
But she added: “Not a single bullet hit us.” Theron said her mother pulled out a gun and responded.
She said: “The message was very clear: ‘I’m going to kill you tonight. You think I can’t get through this door? Keep an eye on me. I’m going to the safe. I’m going to get the shotgun.'”
She also recalled that her father and uncle, who had reportedly accompanied Charles, had both been shot. Theron added: “He walked to the safe and my mother pulled the door open while the brother was still standing there. The brother ran down the hall and she shot one bullet down the hall which ricocheted seven times and hit him in the hand.
‘These are things you cannot explain. And then she followed my father, who was opening the safe at the time to get more guns out, and she shot him.”
The actress said her mother continued with daily life after the incident.
‘The next morning she sent me to school. She was like, ‘We’re moving on,'” the star recalled. “Not necessarily the healthiest, but it worked for us.”
Her mother was not charged because the shooting was ruled self-defense.
