Charlize Theron joined the queens on the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 premiere, where she revealed how the contestants inspired her parenting style.
“I want [my kids] to grow up in a world where they know what it means to accept what’s not you, what is different and love that, to not be scared of that, and to embrace it, and that’s my job as a mom,” Theron, 48, said during Drag Race’s “Untucked” aftershow on Friday, January 5. “I feel like we’re living in a day and age where our words can so easily be weaponized against us.”
She continued, “I worry about us as people and what we can do to each other, and how powerful it is when you love and how powerful it is when you hate. One destroys and one builds.”
The actress is a mother of two. She adopted daughter Jackson in 2012, three years before adopting younger daughter August.
“[I hope] to be like my mom. Fair, tough, and supportive,” Theron told British Vogue in a 2015 profile, noting she “always” wanted to have a family. “Our family is everything. Her greatest skill was encouraging me to find my own person and own independence.”
Theron has since made sure to teach Jackson and August their own skills to grow as individuals.
“A big thing for me is kindness,” she told Us Weekly and other reporters in October 2019. “We kind of live by our religion, which [says], ‘Do unto others the way you want to be done to you.’ We’re big on respect and thinking about others before we think about ourselves.”
Respecting others is one of the reasons that Theron signed on to guest judge Drag Race.
“Given the climate in our country right now, there’s a lot of energy being put toward your community not existing,” Theron told the contestants in the episode, referring to anti-drag legislation being drafted across the country. “I truly believe that all of that is coming from a place of fear. The beauty of what your community brings and the truth of who you are and represent will come out. Don’t give up.”
Theron has long been a vocal ally of the LGBTQIA+ community, especially concerning her kids.
“My daughter’s story is really her story, and one day, if she chooses, she’ll tell her story,” she previously told Pride Source in December 2019 when asked about Jackson coming out as transgender. “I feel like as her mother, for me, it was important to let the world know that I would appreciate it if they would use the right pronouns for her.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 airs on MTV Fridays at 8 p.m. ET
