55 years ago, the late civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King had paid the hospital bill for the birth of American actress Julia Roberts. Although in the past, the Roberts haven’t kept the family connection a secret, but in a very big and exciting way, the fact has been resurfaced with more details, thanks to an interview and viral tweet.

The tweet that made this discovery was posted by Zara Rahim on October 28, 2022, at 1:01 PM. She wrote: 

Today is Julia Roberts’s birthday! 55 years ago MLK and Coretta Scott King paid for her parent’s hospital bill after she was born. Can’t stop thinking about this since I read it. Here she is talking about it with @GayleKing. King had no relations with MLK.

It features a 2 in a half minute long interview with Gayle King and Roberts. At 22 seconds, Roberts says, “The King family paid for my hospital bill, not my family” as her parents couldn’t afford the bill at the time, and the Kings were willing to take care of everything for them.

“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.” Roberts said, certainly due to racial segregation still being dominated in the Southern States. 

And Roberts’s mother said “yes”, thus beginning a friendship between the Kings and the Roberts. That would also lead to the King’s paying for the birth of a girl that would eventually become one of the most successful actresses out there.