It isn’t every day that an unemployed single mother sees herself portrayed by Hollywood star Julia Roberts in an Oscar-winning film.
But Erin Brockovich, who rose to fame after winning the biggest environmental lawsuit in American history, had a remarkable story to tell.
© GettyAfter exposing the fact that contaminated water was causing multiple illnesses in Hinkley, California, in 1993, she helped sue the utility firm responsible, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, on behalf of the town. In 1996, the case was settled for $333m (around $666m, or £520m, today) – at the time, the largest sum ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in the US.
© GettyIt’s 25 years since Erin Brockovich, director Steven Soderbergh’s film about her groundbreaking legal action, was released, but in this exclusive interview with HELLO!, Erin tells us that it feels like yesterday.
Recalling the first time she met Julia Roberts, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role, Erin says she was on set preparing for her cameo role as a waitress.
“We hadn’t met before and she broke the uncomfortableness with: ‘Oh my gosh, it’s nice to meet you. I’m so embarrassed; I don’t even have my boobs in yet’” – a reference to the push-up bra that Julia wore while playing the self-described “activist with cleavage”.
© GettyTo her children – Matthew, 42, Katie, 40, and Elizabeth, 34 – Erin is just Mom, and to her four grand children she is Gigi.
And although her young granddaughter Molly was amazed when she first saw Erin’s name on a film poster featuring Julia Roberts, her children are less fazed by her fame. After all, they remember the tough times during the legal case.
Going it alone
“I didn’t receive financial help,” says Erin, now 64. “Somebody needed to feed them and get us a roof over our heads, so I think it was hard on them and hard on me.
© Getty“I was out in Hinkley every single day. I’d take them up there just to be with me, so we missed out on a lot. If there’s something that makes me sad, it would be that.”
However, her children grew into resilient adults after coming through this difficult period.
© Getty“‘Things are hard and it doesn’t mean I’m not here for you, but it does mean that we’re going to have to buck up and get through it.’ That is definitely a message I sent my kids,” Erin recalls.
© Getty“Two of them are now retired from the US Army and they saw that as [part of] their service; you can’t fold when things are hard.”
Since then, the paralegal and environmental activist has gone on to achieve even more.
She founded The Brockovich Report newsletter to deliver “the unfiltered truth on the US national water crisis”, and in 2020, she published the best-selling book Superman’s Not Coming, about the “fraudulent science” clouding the issue.
Lending a hand
She has just been appointed as global ambassador for Made by Dyslexia, a charity helping those with dyslexia at home and in schools and workplaces.
© GettyErin believes her dyslexic thinking skills, including her photographic memory and pattern recognition, helped her crack the Hinkley case.
© Made by DyslexiaAnd now, she wants others with dyslexia to be recognised for their abilities. “The educational system didn’t [allow for] emotional intelligence,” she says. “It didn’t bring into it pattern recognition or how you’re processing data.”
However, Erin has always been up for a challenge. “My mom taught me that you’re not born with stick-to-it-iveness: you have to develop the habit of persevering even when you don’t want to and it would be easier to give up,” she says. “Giving up – that’s never happened for me.”
Erin Brockovich has joined charity Made By Dyslexia as a Global Ambassador, supporting its mission to teach the world the brilliance of Dyslexic Thinking. Erin is the first guest on season three of the charity’s chart-topping podcast, Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking. In her conversation with Founder Kate Griggs, she shares how her dyslexia helped her to win the biggest environmental lawsuit in US history. Listen on YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
