90s star Sharon Stone shared on the Table for Two podcast about the severe consequences she faced for appearing in the 1992 thriller Basic Instinct. She played romance novelist-turned-seductive murder suspect Catherine Tramell.
Tramell is seen uncrossing her legs during a police investigation and viewers can see that she was not wearing any underwear.
The role cost her the custody of her son
In 2004, Stone’s divorce from Phil Bronstein was finalised and he would have custody of their son, Roan. Roan was adopted by the former couple in 2000.
Stone told podcast host Bruce Bozzi that “Basic Instinct” played a role in the custody battle.
“I lost custody of my child,” Stone said. “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.”
“People are walking around with no clothes on at all on regular TV now and you saw maybe like a 16th of a second of possible nudity of me — and I lost custody of my child,” Stone added. “Are you kidding?”
The judge’s decision led her to check into “the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in the upper and lower chambers” of her heart. The actor added, “It broke my heart. It literally broke my heart.”
The judge’s decision was only the latest example of people weaponizing her movie roles against her. The actor remembered attending the Golden Globes as a nominee for “Basic Instinct” only to be laughed at by her peers when her name was called.
Humiliated
“It was horrible. I was so humiliated,” Stone said. “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. I auditioned for it for nine months. They offered it to 13 other people and now you’re laughing at me. I just wanted to crawl into a hole.”
In her memoir, “The Beauty of Living Twice,” which was published last year, Stone revealed she was misled into appearing nude in “Basic Instinct.” The actor said she had no idea about the nudity until she saw a screening of the film alongside agents and lawyers.
Stone slapped the director
“That was how I saw my vagina shot for the first time, long after I’d been told, ‘We can’t see anything — I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on,’” Stone writes in the memoir. “Now, here is the issue. It didn’t matter anymore. It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make.”
Stone says she went to the projection booth and confronted “Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven by slapping him across the face.
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Photo of Sharon Stone is from IG