Charlize Theron is celebrating her "utterly awesome" mom Gerda Maritz's birthday.
“She TRULY is life,” Theron, 46, wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “She laughs louder than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s a great tennis player/golfer/hiker.”
The “Monster” actor added that Maritz is also “a gifted s—t talker,” and will “tell you how it is anytime of the day.”
In her tribute, Theron shared a rare photo of her daughters, Jackson, 10, and August, 7, laughing alongside their grandmother.
Since adopting both of her children, Theron has preferred to keep their lives private, especially when it comes to Jackson. Theron opened up in 2019 about Jackson being transgender so that the press would use the correct pronouns when reporting on her.
“My daughter’s story is really her story, and one day, if she chooses, she’ll tell her story,” Theron shared during an interview with “Between the Lines.”
Theron is raising Jackson and August with Maritz.
“I knew that I would have to have my mom help me if I was going to do this as a single parent,” Theron told Elle in 2018. “To not acknowledge her in co-parenting my children would be a lie … I would feel pretty alone if I didn’t have a partner in crime in all of this.”
Theron has also said her parenting goal is to be “fair, tough, loving, and supportive,” just like Maritz.
Theron was 15 years old in 1991 when Maritz shot and killed her father, Charles Theron, in self-defense at their family’s South Africa home. The star has spoken at length about that terrifying night.
“This family violence, this kind of violence that happens within the family, is something that I share with a lot of people,” she said on NPR’s “Fresh Air” in 2019. “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 really is about growing up with addicts and what that does to a person.”
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