Julia Roberts is discovering her family’s connection to slavery, learning her ancestry story on Tuesday’s Season Nine premiere of the PBS series Finding Your Roots. On the show, the actress learned that her Southern ancestors owned seven enslaved people during the American slavery era.
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Finding Your Roots host, revealed to Roberts that her ancestors enslaved people aged 6 to 33, including two women, two teenagers and three children.
Roberts said, “That’s sad,” when finding out the 8-year-old and 6-year-old boys must be the women’s children, per TV Insider.
“You have to figure, if you are from the South, you’re on one side of it or the other,” Roberts added after learning about her history. “It just seems very typical of that time, unfortunately. … You can’t turn your back on history, even when you become a part of it in a way that doesn’t align with your personal compass.”
Roberts sat down with Gayle King in October and spoke about another vital part of her history. As Blavity previously reported, the 55-year-old revealed that Martin Luther King Jr.’s family paid for her parents’ hospital bill when she was born.
The actress said the relationship between her family and the Kings started when Coretta Scott King asked if her kids could join The Actors and Writers Workshop school in Atlanta, owned by the Roberts family.
“They were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids,” Roberts told Gayle King as she reflected on the challenges the King family faced due to segregation.
After the acting school owners accepted Martin and Coretta’s children into the school, the social justice champions returned the favor by paying for the Roberts’ hospital bill.
“My mom was like, ‘Sure, come on over,'” Roberts said. “They just all became friends, and they helped us out of a jam.”
