Sharon Stone accuses ex-husband of sending her to operating room without her authorization

BarcelonaWhat Sharon Stone explained on Mayim Bialik's podcast could perfectly well be the beginning of one of her rawest films. According to the artist, while she was hospitalized for a severe stroke that almost killed her, she opened her eyes on a gurney moving through a hospital corridor toward the operating room. As she regained consciousness, a jolt of the gurney finished waking her up and gave her the strength to ask what was happening to her and where they were taking her. If all that already gives you goosebumps, the answer the doctor gave her then was worse: she was going straight to the operating room to have exploratory brain surgery. A surgery that, according to her testimony, she had never authorized.

Stone, who is now 68 years old and was 43 at the time, says that with the little strength she had, she found the energy to rebel. But, despite her opposition, she says the doctor intended to go ahead: he told her not to worry about anything, not to get nervous, and that everything was already prepared. Faced with that answer, she jumped off the gurney as best she could and began demanding that they stop everything. Then, the doctor refused, claiming he had a registered letter in which she had given her consent for the operation.

'In situ' dismissal

It was then that the actress took the opportunity to send the doctor away. The physician –who according to her had been speaking with People magazine during that process– said that he could not do it. But, at that moment, she was saved by the head nurse, who said that she could indeed do it, and the doctor had to be silent after having been exposed in front of a potential witness. "Well yes, sir, she just did," she says the nurse said. "Today I would not be alive if it weren't for her," recalls Stone on the podcast, picked up by media outlets around the world.

In the interview, she also explains that the person who had sent her to the operating room was her second ex-husband, Phil Bronstein. "He had scheduled me for exploratory brain surgery without me knowing or having given my consent," she recalls about the journalist, with whom she became a mother by adopting her eldest son, Roan, in 2000. In fact, she also states that when she had the stroke at home, Bronstein took a long time to take her to the hospital and that she tried to do it on her own, but she could not drive because she had a paralyzed leg. In fact, she also accuses him of having told the doctors when she arrived at the center that she was faking the symptoms.

Legal battle (tainted by sexism)

It is not the first time that Stone has publicly pointed out her second ex-husband, from whom she divorced three years after adopting Roan. After signing the divorce in 2004, Bronstein obtained primary custody of the child. Stone tried to modify the agreement and managed to have Roan live with her, but in 2008 a San Francisco judge rejected her request and granted the father exclusive physical custody, which left the actress only with visitation rights. That judicial process was especially painful for Stone, who in 2023 explained that she believed her participation in Basic Instinct had harmed her position before the court. As she made public, the judge asked Roan, who was four years old at the time, if he knew that his mother made "sex movies". Subsequently, Stone adopted two more children, Laird and Quinn, but as a single parent.

Her health was severely deteriorated by the hemorrhage she suffered in 2001, of which she says the bleeding lasted for nine days and doctors stated she only had a 1% chance of survival. It took Stone almost eight years to fully recover. In fact, she had to learn how to speak, read, and walk again. And if that ordeal wasn't enough, she later explained that the process left her bankrupt. She discovered this when she was able to personally manage her finances again and saw that 18 million dollars had vanished. This, added to the fact that she had been unable to work, left her in a very delicate financial situation that forced her to remortgage her house. In 2024, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she trusted the wrong people and that they almost left her with nothing. So much so that she says when she started to catch up on everything, she discovered that she didn't even have her mobile phone in her own name.

Celibate, but hopeful

Stone has always been characterized by her sincerity in interviews. Earlier this month, she spoke openly in an interview about her celibacy. "I am a very good girlfriend, but I haven't had a boyfriend in a long time. I have had bad boyfriends and good boyfriends. I have had good luck, bad luck, and no luck at all. For quite a long time I haven't had any luck. I have been celibate for quite a while now, because I am at a point where I really only want to be with someone I truly love," she explained. "I'm fed up with dating, they don't deserve my time. I enjoy my time alone more and the time with my children and my friends. I feel like I don't need another child [...] I have very good male friends, but I feel that, when it comes to emotional maturity in relationships, men and women are, apparently, at different stages," she added.

The actress, awarded an Emmy and a Golden Globe, claims that when she was 23 years old, a psychic –who, by the way, she shared with Tina Turner– assured her that she would not find the love of her life until she was "quite old." Definitely, after everything that has happened, she deserves it. It says a lot about her that she hasn't stopped fighting for that too.