The fallout of starring in Basic Instinct stretched beyond star Sharon Stone’s career and into her personal life, the actress says.
In a new interview for iHeartRadio’s Table for Two podcast released on Monday, the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning performer says that her brief nude scene in Paul Verhoeven’s 1992 film, which also starred Michael Douglas, was used against her in court by the judge determining custody of her adopted son, Roan.
“When the judge asked my child — my tiny little boy, ‘Do you know your mother makes sex movies?’ Like, this kind of abuse by the system — that I was considered what kind of parent I was because I made that movie,” Stone recalled.
As a result, she “lost custody of my child” for a shot, which she wrote in her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice, had been added to the film by Verhoeven without her full knowledge or consent. Stone says that after the ruling, which ultimately granted primary custody to Phil Bronstein and her visitation rights, she experienced mental and physical health challenges.
She would be hospitalized that same year at the Mayo Clinic due to cardiac problems related to “extra heartbeats in the upper and lower chambers.” It was a situation that, the actress added, “literally broke my heart.” Looking back, the judgment she faced at the hands of the judge is even more egregious in today’s entertainment landscape.
“People are walking around with no clothes on at all on regular TV now and you saw maybe like a sixteenth of a second of possible nudity of me — and I lost custody of my child,” she pointed out. “Are you kidding?”
Stone said that judgment extended all the way to the awards circuit, where she was laughed at by peers at the 1993 Golden Globes ceremony as her name was read out as a nominee.
“It was horrible. I was so humiliated,” Stone said, laughing before getting more emotional. “Does anyone have any idea how hard it was to play that part? How gut-wrenching? How frightening? To try and carry this complex movie that was breaking all boundaries and everyone was protesting against, and the pressure.”
It was a part that she had auditioned nine months for and had been offered to 13 other people. “And now you’re laughing at me,” Stone said. “I just wanted to crawl into a hole.”