Summer book series: Sharon Stone

I can't rest until I know he's dead. In reality, though, believe it or not, Sharon Stone is pretty shy and introverted, and despite her fame, has led a very private life. But now she's in the midst of a very public and personal re examination of that life in her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice. When it came down to it, I just thought I could write twenty different memoirs. But what what I really need to figure out here? And what I felt I needed to figure out first in

my twenty memoir possibility was who am I? If I'm going to write about my life, the first thing I need to know is who am I? And I felt like, there was a certain point in my life when I felt very kicked, kicked off, kicked down, beaten down, broken, and I needed to know how did I get there so that I don't do that some more? And what is it that that led me to that part of my journey? I want to understand, you know, what is it that breaks me? What is it that that leads

me in this direction? And it all it is never the thing that really breaks you in the end. That's the straw, that's not that's not the load. And so I just wanted to go back and see what started to build that for me, what made that who I was, and what made me vulnerable to ache there? And so

I went back and looked at my journey. It's remarkable actually how heavy a low chair and carried at times in her life, from being molested as a child to the sexual harassment she endured in Hollywood to the stroke that nearly killed her back in two thousand one. I actually interviewed her about that experience while I was at NBC. We spoke at our home in San Francisco. When it hit me, I felt like I had been shot in the head. That's the only way I can really describe it.

It hit me so hard it knocked me over on the sofa. In Today's conversation nearly twenty years later, Sharon and I dive right in and talk about the process of capturing her life on the page. For Sharon, the writing of this book actually happened, and the quietude of the night, the kids are in bed, and everybody's TV is off and all those electric waves aren't so strong, and the TV, the phones not ringing, and all that stuff is quiet, and I sit down and I just

kind of wait for it to start happening. And you know, sometimes it's great, and sometimes I feel like my guts are inside out and I just do what I can do. And sometimes I write two pages and sometimes I write for hours, you know, And sometimes most of it's good, and sometimes some of it's not so great, and I get like a couple of paragraphs out of it. But I feel like it's that's my way. I mean, some people get up and they write from like seven to three every day, and I admire that, but you know,

that's not what happens to me. I don't have that thing. I don't have That's not how it works for me. I have days where it's like I need to paint today, Like you really have to like get out of my hair, Like I have to paint today, you know, and I wander around with the paintbrush in my teeth. So you obviously have this just this huge well of creativity that that you have been mining in recent years, you know, with your painting, with your writing of short stories, with

your writing of this memoir. And you know, those are all very different pursuits. But when it came to the memoir, you would you would probably expect, or readers might express expect that the the person behind the memoir reached some level of self actualization or self awareness. And I'm curious, what did you learn about yourself when you were done with this? Did you did you see your own persona and your own you know, human being with with more clarity?

Oh yeah, I mean I think really the biggest day of change was the day I read the book for the audible book. Yeah, yeah, reading sitting here. Interestingly enough, the director turned doubt to look like a doppelganger of my best friend. And that was kind of, first of all, kind of stunning. When she appeared on the zoom and I said, wait a second, you have to see this picture of my best friend. You're not going to believe it.

And then I put the picture of my best friend in front of me, and I read the book to my best friend. And I just sat here alone in my room reading this book out loud to my friend. And it pulled it all together to me in a new way, like the completion of it and the reading it out loud in this very quiet space. It put it into perspective for me in a new way. And it really did change my life. And it really made me see everybody around me with a different kind of clarity.

And what about how how you saw yourself? I think it made me really own myself out loud. It gave me the confidence to say, this is who I really am, and you can't define me as something else anymore. I'm not going to allow that to happen anymore. And my boundaries and my confidence about myself changed so dramatically that Um, I changed my life, super dramatically, Like I've fired a lot of people around me. People around me fired me. Um,

my life changed. Really, it's changing. It's changing as we speak. My life is changing a lot. Do you feel like you're shedding a skin in a way, I feel like I'm a caterpillar that turned into a butterfly almost, you know, not like I'm shedding a skin exactly as like I'm I'm almost free of a shell that was like crushing me that like I couldn't get out, Like I felt like I was trapped and I couldn't get out like this whole other um oppressive construct of like no, this

is who you are and who you're gonna be. I got it off me. It's like, no, it's not gonna keep going on. I'm not doing that. I'm not being that. You can't make me be that another step I'm not. It's off me. Now, it's off me. It's off me out loud, It's just off me, Like and get off me, Like no, I'm no. The answer to that is a giant no and get off me. And anybody who wants to insist on that you're done? Who puts that constrictive shell on you? Is it? Is it expectations placed on women?

Is it? Hollywood? Is it a way that you are seeing as a BEAUTI full woman? I mean, what what kind of came together to produce that very restrictive really typecasting or shell or expectations that you were really kind of suffocating under. Um, that's a big question, Katie. You know, it's a lot of misogyny. It's people who abusive people

abuse abuse, it's abuse, it's misogyny, it's intentional, uh, misrepresentative behavior. Um, it's let me just say that, if you're a trauma survivor and you're hiding anything like I was, people can be abusers can smell that like a truffle pig can smell a truffle. They just can't And I don't know how that works. And if you are are have been abused by addicts, addicts can smell that like a truffle pig can smell a truffle. So I would say I

have really made huge efforts not to be codependent. But if you have been abused by addicts, then you know, get the tow alanon, get the to a program where you can get help with that, because um, you're a target for that. So UM, I had to get myself to some help. I had to get myself to Alanan and I had to get some actual help with how to detach from abuse, to really get it off me. Um. And it's been an amazing Uh. It actually makes my head hurt to address this, but let's say that's what

my head hurt to start with. That's what my head how my head began to hurt to begin with. Um, it's been a really um, a giant setting down of boundaries. Just my boundaries are. I love my boundaries, and my boundaries love me. Did you not always have them? I mean, is this bard in Heaven? I mean, I think the whole world is probably aware of how much I didn't have boundaries. I think the whole world has seen really clearly, with their own two little eyes, how much I was

abused for not having boundaries. I think the whole world has experienced Sharon Stones abuse and lack of boundaries. I think we all are really clear that I have been abused for lack of boundaries. I think the whole world is really understanding that I have been manipulated by lack of boundaries, and understanding that I can actually say, get the fuck off me. My answer is no, and no

actually means and oh back it up. I think that the whole world has seen the tire treads across my face, and yes, I am learning very well the meaning spelling and definition of the word boundaries. When we come back, what shocked sharing the most about putting her story out in the world. That's right after this. You write so much about trauma and was that in and of itself traumatizing? Yeah,

and it continues to be. I mean, the studio has decided to release a director's cut of Basic Instinct with no permission, discussion, or financial renumeration for me of of a director's cut of Basic Instinct. As the thirty years celebration of the film, um talk about boundaries, talk about a lack of acknowledgement of the female perspective in two whenever they're thinking of doing it, Um talk about no

understanding of me too and me me Sharon Stone too. Um. Yeah, like, hello, the world never stops trying to drive up women's brains and park there without a parking mass And did you express your disappointment or outrage to the fact that that was being done without any consultation. My lawyer has spoken to Sag and we're expressing it. But you know, when you're a young girl and you get your first film, this is not what you anticipate they're going to be doing.

Thirty years later, when you get your first big break in Hollywood. But you know, there's so many people. I mean, let's face it, the man who invented the microwave got

two bucks. This is not a new story. You write a lot about your mom, and I'm curious if you reached a deeper understanding about her through the process of writing this book, because I know that that that she reveals the abew she experienced as a young girl to you, and and and you know, I think an interesting thing about looking back at your life, you can you can have a different vantage point of the people around you and the people that you love or we're loved by.

How did this book change your relationship with your mom or your understanding of it? I mean, understanding something doesn't make it acceptable, and understanding doesn't fix it. Understanding does it make my mom okay? Now, understanding does it make her? Understanding doesn't go back and change her whole life. And understanding isn't going to change what she values or how she's coped, or it has tempered some of her behavior.

It is tempered the things that she puts forth as the good foot, But it hasn't it hasn't changed everything she thinks about secrets and lies and everything about what she finds as a comfort zone. You know, my mother, my mother still feels a little bit more comfort in in a certain degree of danger and a certain degree of discomfort and a certain degree of not having. You know, love and hugs and appreciation and cuddles and extra care aren't her number one comfort zone. You know. That can

creep my mother out. That can make my mother run. You know, too much love, too much, um acceptance, too much, too much transparency is too much for my mom. You know. Writing this book and coming fully into transparency is for me like like the greatest thing that ever happened. Like I'm enjoying it more than I could ever possibly have imagined. It's for me, like you know, apple strutle and ice cream. It's like, oh my god, I didn't know that people were going to be nice to me after I wrote

this book. That's such a really big thing. But I hadn't as a hated What did you think they were going to think or be like to you? Well, people haven't always been traditionally particularly nice to me. Traditionally people have always been rather cool to me, you know, with the exception of people that I really know intimately, people have always been quite cool and rather you know, observing of me as opposed to being warm and embracing of me. This is quite new, and it's so wonderful and so

so absolutely thrilling. Why do you think they weren't nice to you? I think people were afraid of me. I don't think. I don't think people understood me. And I think that in my business people were using that as that way to pretend that I was different than I am and or is my friends know how I am, and you know call me and say, you know, I can't believe you did this because you're so shy. How are you coping because you're so paralytically shy. I can't

believe that you actually did this. And Um, for my mom, I don't think that she's allowing herself the warmth and the love that she could have. She did a little at first when we first started discussing all this. While I was writing the book. She actually went to my kids school for grandparents Day for the first time, and when the kids asked her about her childhood, she told her childhood that she grew up in someone else's house, that she was the housekeeper, that she didn't have her

own family and the kid. You know that everybody stood up and cheered her and said she was such a hero and she had never experienced herself in that way, and she was so proud and so like open, and that she could experience herself as a survivor not as a secret victim was enormous for her and it changed her a lot. But I don't know that she understands fully that she can do that, that she doesn't have to be a secret, and that she doesn't have to

stay in the shadow like a mushroom. You know, she's still so scared, and so I understand her, but she's still running in her fear. And my family is still a lot in their fear and in the kind of behavior that fear creates, and um and a lot of that fear is very antisocial. We'll take a short break, but when we come back, a newly exposed Sharon Stone

finally feel seen. You talk about people being afraid of you, and and I'm wondering if it's because of what you write about your aunt and namesake aunt von You say there is such a prejudice against real beauty, especially when it comes with real intelligence like it did with my aunt. Do you think that. I mean, you're a very beautiful woman, and and you know, Candice Bergen talked about the burdens

of that with her down Yeah. I love that she like ate a whole pumpkin pie and just ate the stood in her kitchen, just ate the insides of a punkin pie, the whole thing. Um. But but but I do sort of wonder if if you could relate to to what it was like to be a young Candice Bergen um where people have these expectations and really don't see you as a full person, but see you unfortunately, I mean as just see your beauty and that is it. Well,

you know, Canadas and I are friends. And she was at my house and I have a screening room in the basement and she we were downstairs and we're going to put on a movie and first you put on the TV on the big screen, and of course it came up with an old movie that she was in which she was young and she looked so gorgeous. I was like, WHOA, look at you, and she was like making jokes about herself and yes, I see, you know, and in her case it introverted her a lot too.

It really introverted her too, you know, because she had made a lot of fun of herself and became a comedian. Because when she first tried to act, everyone really attacked her. I remember an interview or a review from and I forget her name, the biggest interviewer in New York, who wrote that Candice Bergen ran the emotional gamut from A to B. Right. I remember that they wrote the most horrible stuff about her that they would never say about

another actress. They would never be that, you know, stringently intensively attacking and and and sarcastically attacking of an actress, you know. And I remember a review that I got that I was like a fine chardonnay. I would have the shelf life of a fine chardonnay. And I remember writing back to the reviewer and saying, you're not much of a wine connoisseur, you know, like, get ready, buddy, I'm a fine bordeaux. Buckle up, um, Like you just don't you don't get it, like you just you're you're

really you know, you don't know what's happening. Sorry, um. And I don't normally respond to critics, but I remember thinking, you're just trying to make a cheap shot about me. You're not trying to review what I did. You're just trying to be an asshole. Um. Yes, I think that people really do like to be They like to think that you're the You're the You're the end of their witticism. You're they're going to use you as you know, target practice.

It's yeah, it's awful. It's clear that writing has sort of made you feel whole well, and and the reception to this book has made you feel seen. What it makes me is that I have, for five seconds, the control of the narrative about me. Like, no, I don't own house in Australia, I don't own a house in New Zealand. I don't own one in Middle America. I'm not dating Jared Letto, who I've never met. I don't

you know. It's like all these stories you make up about me, It's like, guess what, none of that is my story. Like for five minutes, I get to actually tell you something that's true about me. And that not only that, but I'm just so struck by how emotional you got, that that people are seeing the real you and they're liking the real you, and they are caring about the real you, which you haven't felt in a

very long time. Well, when people are on the roof of your car and ripping the bumper off, and ripping the rear view mirror off, and ripping your clothes off your body and then making up fake stories about you, you don't really feel cared for. You're talking about the paparazzi, paparazzi fans. You know, the response to me has been quite aggressive. It hasn't been like that we like you

kind of response. It's been the like we want it, like devour you response, or that we have like all these really strong opinions about you, but not that we see you, or we know you, or we'd like to have you over for a grilled cheese. Do you think that's because of some of the roles that you've had that people p pull blur the characters you've played with

the person you are. And I have to say I can take responsibility for some of that too, because after I did Basic Instinct, you know, I talked with Cindy Berger, my publicist, about like She's like, well, now you're going to have to decide how you're going to be in public and I was like, well, I don't know what that means. And she's like, well, like when you do interviews,

you're gonna have to decide how you're gonna be. And I was like, well, what do you mean And she's like, well, you know you're very shy and you know you stay home and read books. Like what are you gonna do in your interviews now? And I thought, you know? And she said, well, you know, you're gonna have to have a public image because people are going to try to attack you, and they're going to try to find things that are wrong with you, and they're going to try

to make you. They're gonna try to look for things that you do wrong so they can rip you up. You know, so if you make your public image a certain way, they'll be less able to trip you up because you'll have said I'm either more or wild than this, So it won't matter if you you know, make a mistake in public or you know, there were all this is when you were thirty two years old. We should remind people, right, And so I was like, oh, well, so like if I get caught kissing someone, then if

I'm like this, then it won't be a scandal. And so there was all this because you have to remember this was a period. This is thirty one years ago, so this is a period when women on film were supposed to sit with their legs crossed at the ankles. When there was a bigger scandal when I did that scene that I was lifting my arms over my head and you could see my arm pits because you weren't supposed to show your naked arm pits. This was unfeminine that I was lifting my arms over my head and

continually showing my naked armpits. You know, this was a very big can we do that? Because she keep showing her armpits. This is why I was so rattled that all of a sudden we'd seen up my skirt because we were like, you can't show your armpits. You know, little did I think they were going to see up my skirt because people were like, we can't see your armpits, and I was like, armpits. What's with the armpits? You know?

Because we were still like you had to keep your knees together, you could, you were supposed to cross your legs at the ankle. There were a lot of throughout my career where we allowed you could cross your legs at the knee, but you couldn't put your ankle over your knee and cross your legs even in pants. This was like women couldn't sit like that in movies. You were There were all kinds of things as I was coming up as an actress that you could and couldn't

do as a woman on film. So as things just kept being okay because you know, everything had to go before a board for ratings, and so when the film was coming out, you know, you could only say the F word like once in a movie and still get

an R rating. It's not like now, Like I was watching a show two nights ago that had naked men's testicles in the sex scenes, and I was so like, oh goodness, Like you were seeing everything and I was like wow, like you know, like it was such a big deal everything As I was growing up in the film industry, this is what I was growing through in the film industry because everything was super specific what you

were and were not allowed to do. So we were supposed to show our womanhood in very specific ways, like it was a certain year when you were allowed to not wear panny, those when you were allowed to have bare legs, on film. Isn't that crazy? Right? And so what happened is this scene got super sensationalized to such a degree that it became so much more than it ever really was, and it became historically so much more than it ever really was that even now people are

talking about it when it doesn't mean anything anymore. You know, in this film, I just saw they had erect penises, and I was looking at it, like are they fake penises? Are the guys really showing erect penises? And this was like on HBO, and I was like, and they're making still such a big deal about my one tiny thing that nobody cares about it anymore, but just because it's attached to me, you know, and people wanted because of

that moment in time too. Yeah, but like, hello, this is thirty thirty plus years ago, and people are still like, let's talk about that. It's like, why, why in God's name do you want to talk about that? It's like engine history and nobody cares anymore. But it's like this continual attaching to me because it creates some sort of stigmatization of me, And it's like, guess what you're done stigmatizing me? This has anything to do with me. This is something that you know, you guys turned into a

giant situation. It's not a giant situation like Knock It Off. Do you think it was used to market the movie Hello Hello? You had Michael Douglas and you had an unknown actress like market it on your star. When you you tell me that you think there are a few more books than you want about your dad Dash, it seems like you have a lot to say, Sharon, about a lot of things. So when you start looking at

the next several years, are you a planner? Are you just sort of letting the universe speak to you and use you as a vessel for what you're going to do next? You know? Or do you miss acting? Do you want to do? Uh? You know what? What do you want to do? Well? I have to say some of the most wonderful women in this business have offered me employment and I'm going to be doing some great work in acting with some amazing women in this business, and so I won't be missing acting. Well, can you

tell us anything about it? Or if you tell me, we have to kill me. Well, you know everything about everybody, so you'll probably know soon anyway. But I don't think I should announce it yet. That's exciting. I'm going to let my employers announce it. Um. But I can say that great women are employing me, and I'm really really honored by that. Um, I'm so honored by that. I am. I can say that cool, great, marvelous, smart, funny, uh, amazing women are employing me, and and a bunch of

them uh. And some men to some men to have come through with me, men that I've worked with before, and some new men are calling me. And I can just say that it's it's turned it's turned itself around. It's really turned itself around in a really beautiful way. And it's also kind of made the title of your book truly resonate the beauty of living twice. I think you've probably lived more than twice. Don't you think you're you've lived more lifetimes than even that. Well, you know,

I'm a Buddhist and that's our thing, so of course. UM. But what I think now is that I live a little bit more with an overview of lives lived and intention of living, um, which is that I feel like, no matter what I do, my living is more purposeful. I see that in you if I may say that, I mean, you have many lives within a life, and your work with discussing lives with people is so profound, and the way that you work and the depth with which you work and the goodness with which you've always

worked is so profound. And I imagine that you feel like you live many lives because you live so many lives within this life you're living. And your lives that you're living right now are so good, and they're so focused, and they're so it's so purposeful what you're doing right now. Well,

that's softly nice, thank you. I imagine you must so that you've lived many lives, well, many chapters, right like every chapter is different and and not all wonderful as we know, but important and meaningful and um and and useful. Right well, I think at the end, I mean, one time I I was working with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and we were at we did universities. We were

I was his like opening act at universities. And that was what m I talked about, was that we write the book of our life and we carry it with us. And certainly not every chapter is an easy read or a winner. Sometimes we just feel like those chapters are so devastating, but that's what makes a good book. That's what makes a book a good read, and that's what makes our life a good read because we can turn the page when those pages or those chapters are so difficult.

But we're still going to carry that with us. So it's right on, you know, let's keep writing on and let's see how our book turns out, and if we're

proud of the book that we wrote. As life goes on and as as you said, we've known each other a really long time, and I've watched you write your book, and I've seen some of the tougher chapters, and you've written them so beautifully, Katie, And you've used some of the really harder chapters two make the world a better place, make your world a more profound place and a more loving place. And somehow you've managed to bring more love

into your life. And I want to learn from your book how to do that to my life so that my next book has more love in it too, Um, Because you're such an example. Um, You're such a brave example. You know, your your book has so much courage in it, Um, And you know, for someone who everybody thought was just perky. You know, you have so much guts and so much decency and such a drive to keep moving your life forward positively, and yet to continue to investigate so many

difficult things. It's it's just astounding to me. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to investigate and choose to live positively. And that's the hardest thing to do. Um, And that's what I want to try to do now that I've looked at the hard parts. I want to figure out how to do what you do. Investigate positively, find the love, find the the good. You know. But I think you do that that Sharon, I do, and I think, um, you know your book. Your book

does that as well. And I think it's just so exciting that you know, both of us, we're not letting society define who we are or what we are, what we can do. And I think I see more and more women refusing to accept that, you know, when I see women like Reese Witherspoon saying I want to control my material, or Carrie Washington and people like that, and you and you know saying we have a voice in this and we're not just kind of these people waiting you know, we we are not waiting for other people

to bestow upon us opportunities. We're going to create our own and um and and that's why I'm so excited to see what's next for you, and so excited that you've found this way to channel all this incredible um depth and creativity and and and that you are writing your own book. I just think it's awesome and thank you for doing this, because I love talking to you and I'm so glad that we've we've connected again. The good part of social media, honestly, right, I get so

many cool things from share and everyone. She'll be like, this is so cool, keep sending me d M s and UM and I'm just so happy. Congratulations on the success of your book and and as I said, on telling your own story. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. A big thank you to Sharon Stone my Instagram d M buddy, whose book is called The Beauty of Living Twice.

And that does it for our summer book series, ran There might be a few bonus surprises though for you still to come, but otherwise we're going to take a little break to enjoy what's left of the summer. Can you believe by the way, how fast it's gone by, and prepare for a pretty big fall. My own book, which is called Going There because I Really Go There, is coming out October, and as you might have heard, I'll be going on tour, so come on join me everybody.

To find out when and where I'm heetted, and to grab your tickets, go to ticketmaster dot com slash Going There. But if you can't see me in person, you can still find me here on the podcast. Starting septem Next Question, We'll have a whole new slate of episodes featuring juicy interviews with some pretty important people, and even some exclusive podcast only stuff around my book who We're gonna get pretty personal. Gulp. That's all coming this fall on Next

Question with Me Katie Couric. Find it and subscribe on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shows. So later, enjoy the rest of your summer, everyone, Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Couric, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adrianna Fasio and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed

by Derrek Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, Wake Up Paul, go to Katie correct dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.