Sharon Stone Speaks Out About Near-Death Health Incident: 'I Lost Everything'
Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone opened up further about the medical emergency that nearly took her life.
In 2001, a ruptured vertebral artery bled into the Casino star's brain for nine days. She was given a one percent chance to live. Despite the severity of the situation, Stone decided at the time to keep it a private matter, but the health complications that followed affected her work.
"For a long time I wanted to pretend that I was just fine," she said in a new interview with People. "I need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep for my brain medication to work so that I don't have seizures. So I'm a disability hire, and because of that I don't get hired a lot. These are the things that I’ve been dealing with for the past 22 years, and I am open about that now."
The 65-year-old shared that her life began falling apart shortly after the near-fatal incident, with the end of her marriage to Phil Bronstein, the loss of custody of her adopted son Roan, and the nosedive of her successful career.
"I lost everything," she admitted. "I lost all my money. I lost custody of my child. I lost my career. I lost all those things that you feel are your real identity and your life." She added, "I never really got most of it back, but I've reached a point where I'm okay with it, where I really do recognize that I'm enough."
The Oscar winner had previously spoken about her private battle, penning an essay in 2014 for The Hollywood Reporter revealing the severity of her situation.
At the time, she wrote, "I spent two years learning to walk and talk again. I came home from that stroke stuttering, couldn't read for two years. I was in an ICU for nine days and the survival rate for what I went through is very low. I don't need someone to make me feel bad about growing older. I’ll tell you what makes you feel bad: when you think you might not."
She also told the New Yorker in 2021 that the seizures began years before her 2001 hospitalization. Stone revealed that while filming Basic Instinct, people on set didn't believe her when she told them she was having seizures on set.
"I was clearly having some mini seizures when I was doing 'Basic Instinct,'" Stone said. "I would go like this. [She tilts her head back and flutters her eyes.] I used to tell people I was having them, and nobody would believe me." The director, Paul Verhoeven, told her that her co-stars thought she was "taking drugs at work."
Next: Sharon Stone Shares Candid State of Her Career Following Stroke
