Source: MICHAEL TRAN / Getty
*Julia Roberts revealed in a new interview with Gayle King that her birth was paid for by civil rights icons Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
Roberts’ parents became close friends with the Kings in the 1960s when the children of Martin and Corretta were students of an acting workshop owned by Julia’s parents. The veteran actress unpacked this little detail while chopping it up with Gayle back in September for A+E Networks and History Channel’s HISTORYTalks in Washington, D.C., EW reports.
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“The King family paid for my hospital bill,” Roberts told Gayle. “Martin Luther King and Coretta.”
Roberts explained that her parents, Walter and Betty Lou, ran a theater school in Atlanta called the Actors and Writers’ Workshop, which was one of the few to accept Black children.
It seems the Kings returned the kind favor when Julia was born and the Roberts couldn’t afford the hospital bill, so the King family stepped in.
“They all became friends and they helped us out of a jam,” Roberts said.
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When she was a young girl, King’s eldest daughter Yolanda starred in a play produced by the Actors and Writers Workshop. In the production, she kissed a white actor and the KKK blew up a car outside the theater in response.
“In the ’60s, you didn’t have little Black children interacting with little white kids in acting school,” Gayle noted. “And Julia’s parents were welcoming, and I think that’s extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is.”
Watch the moment between Gayle and Julia via the Twitter clip below.
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