First published February 20, 2022.
Sharon Stone today, and as a young girl in Pennsylvania. She writes about her childhood in her 2021 memoir.
In her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice, published by Alfred A. Knopf in March 2021, the actor Sharon Stone wrote that she and her younger sister Kelly were sexually abused as children by their maternal grandfather. She has described the abuse in the book and in interviews promoting it, including one with The New York Times. The book also revisits her experience of making Basic Instinct, her near-fatal stroke in 2001 and the slow work of rebuilding her life.
This article sets out what she has said, keeps it clearly attributed to her own account, and explains why disclosures like hers matter to many survivors. If any of this is difficult to read, support details are near the end.
What Stone wrote about her grandfather
Stone grew up in Meadville, a small town in north-western Pennsylvania, born on 10 March 1958. In the memoir she writes that the man responsible was her mother’s father, named in coverage of the book as Clarence Lawson, and that both she and Kelly were targeted when they were young girls.
According to reporting on the book, he died when Stone was 14 and Kelly was 11. Stone describes being taken to see his body and feeling something she found hard to name: not grief, but a sense of relief that the danger was finally gone, which she shared with her sister in a single look. Many readers who have lived through similar experiences recognised that mix of emotions.
The memoir places these memories alongside the rest of her life story rather than at its centre; much of the book is about how she came to understand her childhood and how it shaped the adult she became.
Why she chose to speak about it
Stone was 63 when the memoir came out. In promoting it she explained that she wanted people who have been abused, inside or outside the entertainment industry, to feel less alone and more able to ask for help or report what happened to them.
She has also used the book to call attention to the justice system. In passages widely quoted in the press, she argued that everyone who has been harassed or assaulted deserves to be heard in court, and that the backlog of untested rape kits held by police in many places should be cleared so cases can be solved. Leaving that evidence untested, she wrote, is a serious wrong in itself.
That backlog is a real and documented problem in the United States. Advocacy groups and some state governments have spent years pushing for every kit to be tested and for victims to be told what happens to theirs.
Her account of Basic Instinct
Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven, made Stone a global star. The thriller earned about $353 million worldwide and brought her a Golden Globe nomination. It is also remembered for one brief shot in the interrogation scene that has been argued about ever since.
In the memoir, Stone repeats something she has said in various forms over the years: that she was asked to remove her underwear because it was reflecting light, was assured nothing would be visible, and only discovered how the shot looked when she saw the film at a screening attended by agents and lawyers. She has said she was shocked and confronted the director.
Verhoeven has consistently disputed this. He has called her version impossible and said “she knew exactly what we were doing.” He has also praised her performance, and the two have described themselves as being on good terms. Stone herself told an interviewer in 1998 that she had been angry at first but later felt he had made the right creative choice. The memoir returns to the hurt she felt at the time. Readers can weigh both accounts; what is not disputed is that the issue of consent on set, which her story raises, has become central to how film sets are run today.
The wider context: #MeToo and consent on set
The memoir arrived a few years after the #MeToo movement, which grew rapidly in 2017 when many women and men in Hollywood and beyond described being harassed or assaulted by powerful figures, often producers and directors who controlled their careers. The movement led to criminal cases, resignations and new industry standards.
One practical change was the spread of intimacy coordinators, specialists who plan scenes involving nudity or simulated sex with the actors in advance, so that what is filmed matches what everyone agreed to. Stone’s account of Basic Instinct is often cited as an example of why such agreements matter.
More than a story of harm: the rest of the memoir
The title refers to Stone’s sense of having been given a second life. On 29 September 2001 she was taken to hospital with bleeding around the brain, later found to be caused by a tear in an artery at the base of the skull. She was treated with a procedure that seals the damaged vessel from inside, and recovery took years. She has said she had to relearn skills, that her career stalled and that some people took advantage of her while she was ill, leaving her close to broke.
The book also covers her long work raising money for people living with HIV and AIDS, for which she received the Peace Summit Award in 2013, and her career highlights, including the Golden Globe she won for Casino (1995) and her Academy Award nomination for the same role.
If you or someone you know has been affected
Childhood sexual abuse is far more common than most people assume, and many survivors do not speak about it until adulthood, if ever. There is no right time and no obligation to disclose. A few things help when someone does share an experience with you:
- Listen and believe. Thank them for telling you and avoid pressing for details.
- Let them lead. Ask what kind of support they want instead of deciding for them.
- Point to help. In the United States, the National Sexual Assault Hotline run by RAINN is available on 800-656-4673 and through online chat. Other countries have similar free, confidential services.
- Look after health. Talk to a doctor or a qualified counsellor; abuse can affect mental and physical health long after it ends, and support is available.
Stone has said she hopes her honesty encourages others. Whether someone decides to share their story publicly, privately or not at all, the choice should always be theirs.
Sources: Wikipedia: Sharon Stone; Wikipedia: Basic Instinct; RAINN: National Sexual Assault Hotline. Memoir details as reported by The Independent and The New York Times; book: The Beauty of Living Twice (Knopf, 2021).
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