Julia Roberts reveals Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid the hospital bill for her birth
During a conversation with Gayle King for the History Channel's "HISTORYTalks," Julia Roberts revealed the civil rights activist covered her birth bill.
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It is little known that Julia Roberts and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shared a bond from the moment she was born.
During a conversation with Gayle King for A+E Networks and History Channel’s “HISTORYTalks” on Sept. 24, Roberts revealed that the civil rights activist and his wife, Coretta Scott King, covered the hospital bill for her birth. “The King family paid for my hospital bill — Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta. My parents obviously couldn’t pay for the hospital bill,” she said.
In response to a question regarding how the relationship between the Kings and Roberts’ parents, Betty and Walter Roberts, began, the 55-year-old actress replied: “My parents had a theater school in Atlanta called the ‘Actors and Writers Workshop.’ And one day, Coretta Scott King called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the school because they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids. My mom was like, ‘Sure, come on over,’ and so they all just became friends, and they helped us out of a jam.”
Phillip DePoy revealed in a 2013 essay that a Ku Klux Klan member blew up a car outside of the theater in response to him kissing the late Yolanda King, the daughter of Martin and Coretta, during a play scene.
“I kissed a girl, and 10 yards away, a Buick exploded,” DePoy wrote. “I was on the back of a flatbed truck that had been converted into a swamp. I was a fox. The girl was a terrapin. We were in Atlanta, it was a very nice summer day in 1965, and I was 15 years old. The girl was Yolanda King, daughter of Coretta and Martin Luther King Jr. I was primarily Caucasian and Yolanda wasn’t. That’s what the trouble was about. I don’t know who owned the Buick, but I know who blew it up.”
