Julia Roberts Reflects On Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King Paying Bill For Her Birth

As Julia Roberts celebrated her birthday, fans on social media learned more about how that day came to be. A viral clip features the 55-year-old actress explaining how Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King covered the hospital bill on the day she was born.

Roberts discussed the fun fact with Gayle King for A+E Networks and History Channel’s HISTORYTalk last month.

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“The King family paid for my hospital bills,” the movie star responded when the journalist and host inquired.

Roberts continued to explain her family’s relationship with the King family.

“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.”

She continued, “And my mom is like, ‘Sure come on over.’ And so they just all became friends, and they helped us out of a jam.”

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In her own Twitter post, Bernice King, the youngest child of Martin and Coretta shared the clip and her feelings about the viral clip and the story shared.

“Grateful that #JuliaRoberts shared this story with @GayleKing and that so many people have been awed by it,” she wrote. “I know the story well, but it is moving for me to be reminded of my parents’ generosity and influence.”

In 2013, Phillip DePoy penned an essay for ARTS ATL reflecting on how while studying at the Roberts’ school, he was targeted by racists as a white student in 1965. Yolanda King, daughter of Martin and Coretta who passed away in 2007, was cast opposite DePoy in a school production, and the pair shared an on-stage kiss.

“I kissed a girl, and 10 yards away a Buick exploded. 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.”

He continued to write “A man, a tangential member of the Ku Klux Klan, had seen me kiss Yolanda the day before in the same parking lot.”

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