Julia Roberts says Martin Luther King Jr paid for her birth

Ticket to Paradise star Julia Roberts turned 55 on Friday (28 October), but many do not realise she had a strong connection to the late Martin Luther King Jr from birth.

The American actor revealed how Luther King and his late wife, Coretta Scott King, were a massive help before she even born.

In conversation with Gayle King for A+E Networks and History Channel’s 'HISTORYTalks' last month, Roberts revealed that the couple had paid for the hospitals bills after she was born because her parents couldn't afford it.

She said: "The King family paid my hospital bills – Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta. My parents obviously couldn’t pay the hospital bill."

The Pretty Woman star was then asked how the relationship between the Kings and her parents, Betty and Walter Roberts began.

"My parents had a theatre school in Atlanta called Actors and Writers Workshop," the 55-year-old said.

"And one day Coretta Scott King called my mom and asked if her kids could be part of the school because they were having trouble finding a place that would accept their kids. My mom said, ‘Sure, come over,’ so they all just became friends and helped us out."

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In the interview, Roberts' family was praised by Gayle King for trying to remove the segregation that was very apparent in the 1960s. She called her parents 'extraordinary' because it wasn't common at the time to see 'little black children interacting with little white kids in acting school'.

The presenter concluded by saying it 'lays the groundwork' for who Roberts is now as a person.

It has also previously been reported that a Ku Klux Klan member blew up a car in front of Roberts' parents theatre in response to King Jr's daughter, Yolanda, being cast in a play where she had to kiss a white actor.

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Author Phillip DePoy revealed in a 2013 essay that the shocking ordeal happened in the 1960s.

He wrote: "I kissed a girl, and 10 yards away a Buick exploded. I was on the back of a flatbed truck that had been converted into a swamp. I was a fox. The girl was a terrapin.

"We were in Atlanta, it was a very nice summer day in 1965, and I was 15 years old. The girl was Yolanda King, daughter of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. I was primarily Caucasian and Yolanda wasn’t.

"That’s what the trouble was about. I don’t know who owned the Buick, but I know who blew it up."