Martin Luther King Jr. paid for the birth of Julia Roberts, the actor has revealed.
The fact was uncovered by Gayle King for A+E Networks and History Channel’s HISTORYTalks (via Entertainment Weekly ) just after Roberts’ birthday on October 28.
Zara Rahim, a former strategic advisor for Barack Obama, shared a clip of Roberts and King in conversation that has since gone viral.
Today is Julia Roberts birthday! 55 years ago MLK and Coretta Scott King paid for her parents hospital bill after she was born. Can’t stop thinking about this since I read it. Here she is talking about it with @GayleKing https://t.co/5HvpNSUIYb pic.twitter.com/147x6d807W
— Zara Rahim (@ZaraRahim) October 28, 2022
“The King family paid for my hospital bill,” Roberts said in the interview, after calling King’s research “very good”. She explained that her parents, Walter and Betty Lou, were friends with Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta as they ran a drama school in Atlanta.
Roberts explained that the Actors and Writers’ Workshop was one of the few schools that would welcome the King children in to study.
“They all became friends and they helped us out of a jam,” Roberts said of the King family’s gesture when she was born and her parents could not afford the hospital bill.
“In the ’60s, you didn’t have little Black children interacting with little white kids in acting school,” King noted in the interview. “And Julia’s parents were welcoming, and I think that’s extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is.”
Roberts most recently starred in Ticket To Paradise alongside George Clooney. The rom-com was written and directed by Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again! filmmaker Ol Parker.
Ticket To Paradise is out in cinemas now.
