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Candid confessions. Charlize Theron hasn’t shied away from sharing her parenting anecdotes since becoming a mom.
The Oscar winner adopted her first daughter Jackson in 2012 followed by another daughter August three years later. In April 2015, Theron gushed to W magazine how the joys of starting a family later in life. “I do know that choosing to be a mom in my late 30s has been really great for me,” she shared at the time. “It’s given me perspective.”
That same year, the Bombshell star told British Vogue that she “always” wanted to have children. “[I hope] to be like my mom. Fair, tough, and supportive,” the Tully actress told the outlet at the time. “Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.”
Now that she’s got two little ones at home, the Golden Globe winner is content with her single status — but Jackson and August want their mom to date.
“Two days ago I was in the car with my two girls and my little one said something like, ‘You need a boyfriend!’” Theron said during a July 2020 “In Charge With DVF” podcast episode. “And I said, ‘Actually, I don’t. Right now, I feel really good,’ and she’s like, ‘You know what, Mom? You just need a boyfriend. You need a relationship!’”
After telling her daughter she was in a relationship with herself, the Atomic Blonde star told Diane von Fürstenberg: “She had this look in her eye like she had never really contemplated that that was even a possibility. Her mind was blown, but I know that was the day that she realized there’s a different possibility.”
Theron’s last public relationship was with actor Sean Penn. The couple began dating in December 2013 but called it quits two years later. The South Africa native previously dated actor Craig Bierko from 1995 to 1997, singer Stephan Jenkins from 1998 to 2001 and Irish actor Stuart Townsend from 2001 to 2009.
Though she’s been single since her split from Penn, the Monster actress shared on The Drew Barrymore Show in September 2020 that she didn’t “feel lonely.”
In March 2016, she spoke with WSJ Magazine about her relationships and their relationship to her becoming a mom.
“In my honesty about wanting to have more kids, there was an understanding that a relationship had to go somewhere before it was going to be — what you hope for, which ultimately did not happen,” she told the publication. “I couldn’t foresee that, but that stuff takes time and I think it’s my responsibility as a mother to protect my child from that. And we had a very clear understanding.”
Keep scrolling to see the Emmy nominee’s quotes about parenting over the years, from coparenting with her mom, Gerda Maritz, to sharing life lessons.
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