Elite MemberJulia Roberts' birth was paid for by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King:
'They helped us out'
'They helped us out'
"The King family paid for my hospital bill," Roberts said. "Martin Luther King and Coretta."
Roberts' parents, Walter and Betty Lou, were friends with the Kings because they ran a theater school in Atlanta, the Actors and Writers' Workshop, which at the time was one of the few if not the only school willing to accept the King children.
So when little Julia was born and the Roberts couldn't afford the hospital bill, the King family stepped in.
"They all became friends and they helped us out of a jam," Roberts said.
Roberts became friends with Yolanda King, the eldest of MLK's children, who died in 2007 from complications related to a chronic heart condition. Yolanda King had starred in a play produced by the Actors and Writers Workshop in which she kissed a white actor, prompting a member of the KKK to blow up a car outside the theater.
"In the '60s, you didn't have little Black children interacting with little white kids in acting school," Gayle King noted. "And Julia's parents were welcoming, and I think that's extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is."
And who Julia Roberts is ... is feisty. Roberts infamously got in trouble in 1990 for calling a South Carolina town "horribly racist" and "a living hell" after a Black friend was refused service at a restaurant.
"I can see her doing that," Yolanda King later said of Roberts in a CNN interview. "I can see it pouring forth from her, and rightfully so."
Roberts was in Abbeville filming Sleeping with the Enemy, and residents were none too happy with her comments, taking out an ad in Variety entitled, "Pretty Woman? Pretty Low."
"I was born in the South, so in no way am I trying to create a stereotype," Roberts said in a statement at the time. "I was shocked that this type of treatment still exists in America in the '90s — in the South or anywhere else."
Roberts' parents, Walter and Betty Lou, were friends with the Kings because they ran a theater school in Atlanta, the Actors and Writers' Workshop, which at the time was one of the few if not the only school willing to accept the King children.
So when little Julia was born and the Roberts couldn't afford the hospital bill, the King family stepped in.
"They all became friends and they helped us out of a jam," Roberts said.
Roberts became friends with Yolanda King, the eldest of MLK's children, who died in 2007 from complications related to a chronic heart condition. Yolanda King had starred in a play produced by the Actors and Writers Workshop in which she kissed a white actor, prompting a member of the KKK to blow up a car outside the theater.
"In the '60s, you didn't have little Black children interacting with little white kids in acting school," Gayle King noted. "And Julia's parents were welcoming, and I think that's extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is."
And who Julia Roberts is ... is feisty. Roberts infamously got in trouble in 1990 for calling a South Carolina town "horribly racist" and "a living hell" after a Black friend was refused service at a restaurant.
"I can see her doing that," Yolanda King later said of Roberts in a CNN interview. "I can see it pouring forth from her, and rightfully so."
Roberts was in Abbeville filming Sleeping with the Enemy, and residents were none too happy with her comments, taking out an ad in Variety entitled, "Pretty Woman? Pretty Low."
"I was born in the South, so in no way am I trying to create a stereotype," Roberts said in a statement at the time. "I was shocked that this type of treatment still exists in America in the '90s — in the South or anywhere else."
.png){kind=icon}
MOTM
.png){kind=icon}
