Charlize Theron discusses witnessing her father’s death in a new interview

Actress Charlize Theron says in a recent interview that she witnessed her mother fatally shoot her father when she was 15 years old.

Ms. Theron told New York Times Magazine that she chose to speak about the incident because domestic violence is “prevalent in a lot of homes” and talking about it “makes other people not feel alone.”

She said her father, Charles, was a “full-blown functioning drunk,” who came home one night in a violent rage in 1991. He shot through the steel doors of their South African home, intending to kill both her and her mother, she said.

She and her mother barricaded the door with their bodies, but Charles broke in and fired a gun at both of them. Her mother, Gerda, opened the safe that held her gun and fatally shot him, Ms. Theron said.

No charges were filed against Gerda; the shooting was ruled self-defense. She reportedly lives near her Oscar-winning daughter in the Los Angeles area.

Ms. Theron holds dual citizenship in South Africa and the United States, where she was naturalized in 2007.