Halle Berry Didn’t Talk To Her Mom For 1 Year For This ‘Trivial’ Reason
Halle Berry has always been close with her mother, Judith Ann Berry, who raised her as a single parent. Though the actor and her mom have had a special bond for the last five decades, there was a time the pair didn’t speak to each other for a little over a year — and those months apart actually taught Berry a valuable lesson.
Halle Berry stopped talking to her mom because of money
After her parents divorced when she was four years old, Halle Berry was raised by her mom, Judith Ann.
Growing up, Berry received a countless amount of support from her mother. Not only did Judith Ann encourage her daughter to always believe in herself, she even backed a young Halle when she set out to become a model at 18.
That year, Berry moved to Chicago to pursue a modeling career. Though she initially thought that living in the Windy City in an apartment full of other aspiring models would be great, Berry soon realized that that wasn’t the case.
After a month, Berry left that situation and moved into another apartment with a friend. However, things didn’t get better for the actor as she quickly found herself broke and living on her own.
“I got together with one of the other models, Susan. We moved out into our own one-bedroom apartment. She had the bedroom, and I slept on the couch,” Berry explained during a 1998 spotlight interview. “About a month or two after that, Susan splits, leaves town because she’s not getting any real jobs and I’m stuck with this $1200 a month rent.”
Like any scared teenager, Berry called her mom to ask for money.
“So when she called and asked me for I think it was $500 to do her portfolio,” Judith Ann recalls during the interview. “I was actually at a time myself when I didn’t have that kind of money to send her.”
Much to her dismay, Berry’s mother refused to help.
“She said no. My world came crumbling,” the Oscar winner shared. “I thought, ‘How could my mother say no?’ I’m thinking, ‘Mom, I’m trying to eat here. You do not understand the state I’m in, and she said ‘no.'”
She continued, “I didn’t speak to her for a little over a year after that. My ego kicked in. My pride kicked in and I said, ‘Fine, I’ll never ask you for another thing.'”
The actor says her mother’s refusal to help was the ‘best thing’ that could have happened to her
A year after their falling out, Halle Berry came to a realization that helped her get back on good terms with her mom.
Though her mom had refused to help her in a time of need, Berry understood why her mother didn’t just bail her out. Instead of spoiling her with comfort, the Gothika actor’s mother gave her the chance to stand on her own two feet, which Berry says is the best thing her mother could have did.
“What seemed like a really terrible thing in the moment was actually the best thing she could have ever done for me,” Berry said during the interview. “I forgave her, we made up, and I vowed to never have a year away from my mother ever again over something as trivial as that.”
Her mom’s tough love taught Halle Berry to never give up
Like many parents, Judith Berry helped Halle Berry grow as an individual.
Though it seemed to Berry that her mom’s lack of financial help was harsh, she now realizes that that situation needed to happen.
“That’s probably one of the best things she did for me,” the Monster’s Ball star told People in 2017. “She said, ‘If you want to be there, then you work it out.’ And I had to work it out.”
Her mother’s tough love taught Berry that giving up was not “an option.” With that in mind, the actor figured out her own life and eventually found success.
“It was to prove to her and everybody else. It took me right back to my high school years. ‘You say I can’t, watch me. I’m going to figure this out,'” she said. “And shelter life was part of figuring it out for a minute until I could get a waitressing job. Then I got a bartending job, and until I could figure that out, that’s what I did.”
We guess it’s true: Mother really does know best!
