Sharon Stone says she 'never got equal pay' as a working actress and wants her kids to sell her costumes

Sharon Stone has a unique way of leveling the playing field with her male co-stars.

The Basic Instinct actress, 64, took to her Instagram Story on Friday to share a video of her and Robert De Niro, 79, in the 1995 film Casino. The video, originally posted by a De Niro fan account, revealed that the costume budget alone for the movie was $1 million, and that both the actors were allowed to keep their costumes. Per the account, Stone wore 40 different costumes in the crime drama, in which she played a chip hustler in Las Vegas.

Stone captioned the post, “Just in case I die one day and my kids notice I never got equal pay and want to auction them.”

According to the actress, Stone only has one item from Casino on hand. She told Vogue in 2020 that she only kept a Pucci jacket from the set.

This isn’t the first time Stone has spoken out about not receiving equitable pay when working in film. In February, Stone wrote an essay for InStyle in which she said she kept the costumes from Basic Instinct as a way to level the playing field with her male co-stars.

"I couldn't believe how exciting it was and all of the incredible costumes that were being made just for me. I put in my contract that I could keep the clothes," she wrote. "People thought I was crazy, but the truth is I wasn't getting paid much compared to my male costar. I made $500,000; Michael [Douglas] made $14 million. So keeping my costumes was a really smart thing to do."

Stone has spoken about payment issues on the set of Basic Instinct before. The Flight Attendant alum told People in 2015 that after filming the 1992 thriller, “no one wanted to pay me.”

“I remember sitting in my kitchen with my manager and just crying and saying I’m not going to work until I get paid,” she recalled. “I still got paid so much less than any men.”

At the time, she noted that the issue of women not being paid their worth extends far outside of Hollywood.

“More than 50% of marriages end in divorce and the women are working and taking care of their kids and that’s how it goes and you have to say ‘Yes’ because you have to feed your children," she said. "It’s a sort of economic blackmail."

In an August interview with Vogue Arabia, Stone shared that she finds this decade of her life the most “joyful” — and has no interest in being kept down because she’s a woman.

"I'm comfortable with myself, and I don't feel personally oppressed,” she said. “I think I can probably speak for you and the rest of the female planet when I say that there's a giant effort to make us not feel free and to feel oppressed. And I don't go for it.”

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