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Julia Robert's special connection to civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. has gone viral amid the actress' 55th birthday, per Entertainment Weekly.
Roberts sat down with Gayle King last month and revealed that MLK Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill for her birth. The little-known fact resurfaced after former White House advisor Zara Rahim tweeted a clip of Roberts recalling her birth story in honor of the Oscar winner's birthday on Friday (October 28).
"The King family paid for my hospital bill," Roberts told Gayle King during A+E Networks and History Channel's HISTORYTalks in Washington, D.C. "Martin Luther King and Coretta."
Roberts' parents, Walter and Betty Lou, made friends with the Kings after accepting the King children into their Atlanta theater school, the Actors and Writers' Workshop, which was one of the few, if not the only school willing to do so at the time.
When Julia was born and her parents weren't able to afford the hospital bill, the King family returned the favor.
"They all became friends and they helped us out of a jam," Roberts said.
Roberts also became friends with Yolanda King, the eldest of MLK's children. Yolanda, who died in 2007 from heart complications, starred in a play put on by the Actors and Writers' Workshop where she kissed a white actor, prompting the KKK to blow up a car outside the theater.
"In the '60s, you didn't have little Black children interacting with little white kids in acting school," Gayle King noted. "And Julia's parents were welcoming, and I think that's extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is."
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