Charlize Theron recalls moment mother killed her father

Charlize Theron recalled the day her father died at the hands of her mother whilst growing up in South Africa.

The Mighty Joe Young actress has been on the big screen longer than many in Hollywood, with her career dating back to the 90s.

Having lived in Los Angeles for quite some time, you might be forgiven for thinking she was always a US native, instead of having been born and raised in South Africa.

However, the 50-year-old's formative years on the African continent wasn’t anything like Hollywood. But it was something like a horror film.

Having been born to Charles Jacobus Theron and Gerda Jacoba Aletta Maritz, Theron was no stranger to conflict in her home.

But June 21, 1991, was a day that would stay with her.

Theron explained during a video podcase with The New York Times, released on Saturday, April 18, how her mother murdered her father.

Charlize Theron revealed to The New York Times the moment her mom killed her dad (YouTube/The New York Times)

At 15 years old at the time, the Mad Max star revealed that it all started over her father becoming irate over a small mistake she had made.

"I just knew...that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for him. I felt it, I felt something was different," she said, noting that he was intoxicated when her mother killed him.

"I sat down with my mom and said, 'I think you should separate from him.' I never imagined that those words would come out of my mouth," she went on to share of her conversation with her mom. "I knew he was mad at me. So eventually, when he decided to come home, I said to her, 'Please tell him I'm asleep.'"

However, later that night, her dad ‘broke into the house’ and in a bid to enter the premises, he ‘shot through the steel doors to get into the house’.

This was the move that made it ‘very clear that he was going to kill them.’

“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,'” the actress recalled.

Theron moved to Los Angeles three years later and appeared in her first role (Trans Atlantic Entertainment)

However, Theron’s mom had ‘run to the safe to get her gun’ by the time he had ‘broke into the first gate’.

From there, she said she and her mom were forced to use their bodies to hold her bedroom door closed, as her father ‘stepped back and started shooting through the door,’ missing his victims.

That’s when her mom took measures to make sure they survived, as Theron said: "My mom followed my father, who was, by then, opening the safe to get more weapons out, and she shot him. Unfortunately not an isolated story. These things are prevalent in a lot of families' homes."

As this was considered to be self-defense on the part of her mom, no charges were filed against her.

Just three years later, in 94, Theron booked herself a one-way ticket to LA to pursue an acting career, landed her first role as an extra in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest just one year later, and the rest was history.