As a young girl, she witnessed a tragic and life-altering event — her mother fatally shot her abusive father in self-defense.
Despite this harrowing past, she rose above adversity, eventually making her way to Hollywood, where she not only built a successful career but also earned the ultimate honor — an Academy Award.
An unthinkable tragedy
Hollywood is full of stars who fought their way up from nothing — defying the odds and proving everyone wrong. Many A-listers didn’t start with privilege or connections, but through sheer grit, they carved out their place among the elite.
Actress Charlize Theron was never meant to be just another pretty face. Hollywood had a box for women like her — eye candy, silent, replaceable. But she refused to play that game. She had already faced more than most could imagine.
Charlize Theron is a South African-American actress and producer, known as one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. With an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a spot on Time‘s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, she’s built a career that few can match.
But before the fame and fortune, her life was marked by an unthinkable tragedy.
Charlize Theron was born on August 7, 1975, in Benoni, South Africa, into a prominent Afrikaner family. Her ancestry traces back to Dutch, French, and German settlers, with her French ancestors being among the early Huguenots in South Africa.
Her father, Charles Theron, and mother, Gerda Maritz, worked in road construction, but her family history goes far beyond that — she is even related to Danie Theron, a well-known military leader from the Second Boer War.
While Theron is fluent in English today, her first language is Afrikaans. And though she would one day take Hollywood by storm, her early life in South Africa was shaped by both privilege and unimaginable hardship.
Why she was bullied in school
Growing up, Charlize Theron was the girl who never quite fit in, especially when it came to the boys.
“I wore really nerdy glasses because I was blind as could be and the boys didn’t like [me],” she revealed in a recent interview with PEOPLE in New York. “I didn’t have any boyfriends, but lots of crushes.”
She was ignored by a boy she liked, and though she longed to be part of the popular crowd, she ended up doing some “crazy things” in an attempt to fit in.
“I wasn’t in the popular crowd. There was a really popular girl at school and I was obsessed with her. I mean, you would go to jail for that stuff today,” Theron says with a laugh. “I was in tears one day because I couldn’t sit next to her.”
Her classmates didn’t make it easier, bullying her for her glasses, imperfect hair, and clothes.
“I actually got a lot of the mean girl stuff from the ages of 7 to 12. I was pretty much a mess in primary school,” she admits. “But I got that out of my system by the time I got to high school and was more immune to all of that stuff.”
Her father was a violent alcoholic
Charlize Theron grew up on her parents’ farm in Benoni, just outside Johannesburg — a place that should have been peaceful but instead became the setting for a night that would change her life forever.
On June 21, 1991, her father, a violent alcoholic, came home in a drunken rage. This time, it was worse than ever. Sensing trouble, an aunt called to warn the family that Charles was agitated.
Theron, who was 15 at the time, recalled the eerie feeling of dread that settled over her.
”Nature gives you instinct. And I knew something bad was going to happen,” she said.
When her father came home, he was out of control, hurling threats at Charlize and her mother, his anger boiling over into violence. Then, he grabbed a gun.
”My mom and I were in my bedroom, leaning against the door because he was trying to push through,” Charlize told NPR and continued:
”So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside, trying to stop him from getting through. He took a step back and just shot through the door three times.”
”None of the bullets ever hit us, which is just a miracle,” Charlize added.
As he fired at them, Charlize’s mother, Gerda, had no choice. She reached for her own handgun, pulled the trigger and shot her husband. It was an act of survival.
The courts ruled it self-defense — Gerda faced no charges — but the trauma of that night would stay with Charlize forever.
”Skinny legs, big belly”
Charlize once described her father as a towering man with “skinny legs and a big belly,” someone who could be serious but also had a deep love for laughter and life.
However, she acknowledged that he struggled with alcoholism.
“My dad was a big guy, tall, skinny legs, big belly,” Theron said. “[He] could be very serious but loved to laugh as well, and enjoyed life. He also had a disease. He was an alcoholic.”
While she clarified that he never physically hurt her, she admitted, ”he was a verbal abuser.”
The incident in 1991, of course, shook her to the core. The moment left a lasting impact on the Oscar-winner, who reflected,
”This family violence, this kind of violence that happens within the family, is something that I share with a lot of people.”
“I’m not ashamed to talk about it, because I do think that the more we talk about these things, the more we realize we are not alone in any of it,” she continued. ”I think, for me, it’s just always been that this story is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person.”
Instead of breaking her, the trauma became the fire that fueled her unstoppable rise.
”I survived that, and I’m proud of that. I’ve worked hard for that, too,” Theron told The New York Times. ”And I am not scared of that. I am not fearful of the darkness. If anything, I am intrigued by it, because I think it explains human nature and people better.”
How Hollywood discovered her
According to Theron, the real struggle began after the shooting. ”That was my entire childhood. My trauma was all of that,” she admitted, revealing that the aftermath was even more haunting than the event itself.
At 19, Charlize Theron arrived in Los Angeles with nothing but a suitcase and an unrelenting drive. She had no connections, no support — just raw talent and a fierce determination to succeed. One day, while arguing with a bank teller over a bounced check, a talent agent overheard her. That chance encounter opened the door to Hollywood, but Charlize knew she had to fight for every opportunity.
Her big break came with The Devil’s Advocate (1997), where she stood her ground alongside Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. Hollywood started taking notice. But it wasn’t until 2003 that she truly shocked everyone. For Monster, she completely transformed her appearance, gaining weight and shedding her glamorous image for the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The gritty performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Charlize had proved herself, but she wasn’t interested in playing it safe.
Has portrayed several killers
She continued to push boundaries, taking on roles in action films, drama, and comedy. She became one of the most influential women in Hollywood, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, producing films and advocating for better roles for women.
And in 2015, at 40 — an age when Hollywood typically sidelines actresses —Charlize redefined herself once more. As Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, she stole the show, cementing her legacy not just as an actress, but as a true warrior in Hollywood.
Theron has portrayed several killers throughout her career, and it might seem surprising, given her background, that she chose to take on the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.
Aileen was a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for killing six men (she was never tried for a seventh murder) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Aileen Wuornos became the subject of Monster.
Film critic Roger Ebert hailed Charlize Theron’s portrayal as “one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema.”
“People like Aileen Wuornos are often just labeled and pushed aside, with no one wanting to truly understand them,” Theron shared with The New York Times. “No one asks, ‘Why did this happen?’ I’m intrigued by the ‘why.’ Because in many ways, I’m here today because of that very question.”