Charlize Theron has spoken out about her mother’s killing of her father.

The actress discussed her early experiences with domestic violence while on the press tour for her new film Bombshell. She told NPR’s Fresh Air about the night her father came home intoxicated and fired rounds at his family through a locked door, threatening her and her mother, Gerda, in June 1991, when she was 15 years old.

Gerda Maritz took action to save not only her own life but also that of her 15-year-old daughter Theron at their family’s house in South Africa.

“My father was so drunk that he shouldn’t have been able to walk when he came into the house with a gun,” she explained.

“My mum and I were in my bedroom leaning against the door because he was trying to push through the door. So both of us were leaning against the door from the inside to have him not be able to push 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.”

Gerda shot her husband to rescue her daughter and herself.

“But in self-defense, she ended the threat,” the actress explained, justifying why Gerda was not charged.

According to Theron, her father struggled with drinking. “I only knew him one way, and that was as an alcoholic,” she said. “It was a pretty hopeless situation. Our family was just kind of stuck in it. And the day-to-day unpredictability of living with an addict is the thing that you sit with and have kind of embedded in your body for the rest of your life, more than just this one event of what happened one night.”

“This family violence, this kind of violence that happens within the family, is something that I share with a lot of people,” the Oscar winner stated after the incident.

Her family had been in a “pretty hopeless situation” with her father before to that night, according to Theron. “My father was a very sick man.

The insidious nature of her father’s addiction and subsequent actions has “scarred” her and her mother for the rest of their lives. “Of course, I wish what happened that night would have never happened. It’s unfortunately what happens when you don’t get to the root of these issues.”

Theron hasn’t been shy about exposing the circumstances behind her father’s death or her mother’s participation.

Theron said. “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.”

“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.”

In the same interview, Theron discussed her youth in apartheid-era South Africa, revealing that she was sexually harassed by a well-known film director.

“I am lucky enough that I had a great mom who really kind of made me brave and always told me to be brave,” Theron told Extra at Elle’s 2018 Women in Hollywood event in October 2018, crediting Gerda with making her strong.

“I don’t know who I might have been without that,” she added.