What words come to mind when you think of actress Sharon Stone? Beautiful, successful, and talented are apt ones. The star of films like Casino and Basic Instinct has left her mark in Hollywood for many years. However, the fan favorite has had her struggles in real life. Her relationship with her late mother, Dorothy, was tangled and sometimes troubled. Stone was a guest on Anderson Cooper's podcast about death and grief, All There Is, recently. She got candid about what she went through with her mom before she passed away at 91 last year. Those memories were still so excruciating that Sharon Stone wept as she spoke.
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Dorothy Stone Allegedly Had a Horrific Childhood
Stone told Anderson Cooper about the terrible circumstances of her mom's youth. Those circumstances shaped her, and affected her daughter, Sharon, as well. The actress shared, "My mom behaved often as if she didn't like me at all. And it took me quite a bit of therapy and trauma therapy to understand that it was a reflection of her own self-loathing."
Dorothy Stone was allegedly subjected to such hideous abuse that she was taken out of her home. She was placed in another home where she was treated more like a servant than a family member. Sharon Stone summed it up. "This was incredible child abuse on top of the child abuse she'd already suffered. And she was pregnant at 16 and married to my dad... They loved each other very much and had a really passionate, loving marriage for 60 years. However, nobody should be pregnant and married at 16 and working as a child servant at 9."
Her Mom Feared Death
Sharon Stone confided to Anderson Cooper that her mother was scared to die. She was afraid that she would encounter her own parents again in the next life. Therefore Sharon had to lovingly tell her a fib. "So I had to lie to her and tell her that her father was in jail and her mother was in a mental hospital. And they weren't going to be there."
She knew that she had to emotionally relinquish her mom in order for her to finally pass away. "My mom was holding on and holding on. And I finally realized, 'I have to let go. I need to release my mother.' I need to stop walking in the room. I need to go upstairs and ignore my mother so she will die. I need to detach and release. And she's only going to die if I let go."
The Two Women Had So Much Unfinished Business
There were words that Sharon Stone dearly longed to hear from her mom. Nevertheless, Dorothy Stone could never speak them. "I wanted her to say, 'I'm proud of you. I love you. I'm sorry. You're important to me.' And I wasn't going to get them. And I had to make peace with the fact that my mom was not going to do that. My mom was going to tell me every awful thing."
