'Why I Had to Forgive My Mom's Killer

FORMER AMBASSADOR NICOLE AVANT'S EMOTIONAL JOURNEY | AFTER A GUNMAN MURDERED HER MOTHER IN A HOME INVASION, NICOLE AVANT WAS DETERMINED TO HONOR THE MATRIARCH-AND FIND PEACE

- MARISSA CHARLES

In the predawn hours of Dec. 1, 2021, Nicole Avant awoke to a nightmare she couldn't believe was real. Her husband, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, called from a business trip and told her, "Your mom's been shot." Mere hours earlier, Nicole had said goodnight to her mother, philanthropist Jacqueline Avant, 81, via text. Now Jacqueline was dying in the hospital after a home intruder shot her in the back.

As reality set in, Nicole said a prayer: "Oh God, please do not let me hate this man." Aariel Maynor, a felon released on parole three months earlier, had broken into her parents' Beverly Hills home and fled empty-handed, leaving Nicole's father, Clarence Avant, then 90, wondering why his wife of 54 years was bleeding on their living room floor. (Maynor, 31, is now serving a 150-year prison sentence.) "It was all-consuming, so heavy. I felt as if a house fell on me," says Nicole, 55. "I had never felt energy like that. Who was I going to call and ask,