Julia Roberts, 55, revealed in a recent interview that her parents befriended the late Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King prior to her birth when they lived in Atlanta. Due to this relationship, the star admitted that Martin and his wife paid for her hospital bill that accumulated from her birth, due to Julia's family having money issues at the time.

The King family paid for my hospital bill.Julia Roberts

Julia made the shocking revelation in an interview with Gayle King, a broadcast journalist for the American news channel, CBS News.

Her parents, Walter and Betty Lou, befriended the Kings due to the pair running a theatre school in Atlanta, which at the time was one of the very few schools that would accept the Kings.

She told Gayle: "The King family paid for my hospital bill. Martin Luther King and Coretta."

Julia said they were willing to "help them out of a jam" after her parents accepted the King's children into their Atlanta school.

This came after the eldest King, Yolanda, starred in a play produced by the Actors and Writers Workshop, in which she kissed a white actor, prompting a KKK member to blow up a car outside the theatre.

Commenting on the Roberts accepting the Kings, interviewee Gayle exclaimed: "In the '60s, you didn't have little black children interacting with little white kids in acting school.

"And Julia's parents were welcoming, and I think that's extraordinary, and it lays the groundwork for who Julia is."

Julia is known for her strong stance against racism, as she even called out a South Carolina town in 1990 for being "horribly racist".