We’ve all had to deal with things from our childhood, some maybe more traumatic than others. That includes celebrities too, which actress, Charlize Theron shed light on during her interview on the Howard Stern show. Just days ahead of the much-anticipated release of her new film, “Atomic Blonde”, the 41-year old actress shared how difficult it was growing up with an alcoholic father.

His alcoholic addiction led to his death when her mother shot and killed him in self-defense. According to what Theron told Stern, she didn’t really know how to react at the time.

“I just pretended like it didn’t happen. I didn’t tell anybody — I didn’t want to tell anybody. Whenever anybody asked me, I said my dad died in a car accident. Who wants to tell that story? Nobody wants to tell that story.”

She added that the hardest part in all of it wasn’t her father’s death. It was having to live with an alcoholic in the first place. Living every day with someone who could control the fate of your day based on whether they took a drink or not was stressful for her as a child.

The actress shared, “I think what more affected me for my adult life that happened in my childhood was more the every day living of a child living in the house with an alcoholic and waking up not knowing what was going to happen. And not knowing how my day was going to go and all of it dependent on somebody else and whether he was not going to drink or drink.”

As for her mother, Theron praises her for her strength (who hasn’t really had any therapy) She said her mother’s philosophy was, ‘This is horrible. Acknowledge that this is horrible. Now make a choice. Will this define you? Are you going to sink or are you going to swim?’ That was it.”

READ MORE: Charlize Theron Opens Up About The Night Her Alcoholic Father Was Killed By Her Mother