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Charlize Theron says it was ‘heartbreaking’ telling her daughters about George Floyd’s death

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Charlize Theron has discussed how she spoke to her children about George Floyd’s death and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, saying that their conversation was “heartbreaking at first”.

Theron recently made an appearance via video call on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

During the interview, Jimmy Fallon asked The Old Guard star whether she has spoken to her daughters about the circumstances of the death of Floyd, who was killed on 25 May after a police officer knelt on his neck for over eight minutes.

Theron is mother to two black girls aged eight and five. Both of her children, Jackson and August, were adopted from South Africa, where she was also born.

The Oscar winner explained that when she became a parent, she “vowed that I would always tell them the truth in a way that they can handle”.

“I feel like this is such an important moment for them, for all of us,” Theron said. “They have an awareness. I think we forget how aware sometimes our kids are.”

The 44-year-old stated that she wanted her children “to know what this was all about, what happened to George Floyd and to so many other black bodies that have died from this violence”.

“I wanted them to have an awareness of how unfair and how unjust all of this is,” she said.

Theron acknowledged that in telling them about some of the “ugliness” that exists in the world, her children likely grew up “a little faster than maybe they should’ve or would’ve normally during this period”.

Nonetheless, the Oscar winner stressed her view that “this is too important of a moment not to be completely transparent”.

Theron recalled that her daughters “handled it really well” when she spoke to them about Floyd’s death.

“I think it was heartbreaking at first,” she said. “They couldn’t understand that people would let something like that happen.”

Theron told Fallon that thinking about the conversation she had with her children was making her feel “emotional”.

After speaking to her daughters about the protests that took place in the wake of Floyd’s death, the young girls “wanted to be proactive”, the actor said.

“They really wanted to know ‘what can we do’? And so they became very active in protesting and wanting to make signs and wanting to actually go and protest. They’ve really grown from this,” she stated.

Theron said her daughters have become “real little warriors in their own right”, adding: “I can take no credit for it.”

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