It took seven years for Sharon Stone to physically recover after a stroke nearly ended her life in 2001 — and the health crisis’ toll on her finances was similarly devastating.
In a wide-ranging Hollywood Reporter interview published Tuesday, Stone said she lost a staggering amount of her fortune while she was recuperating.
“People took advantage of me over that time,” the actor said. “I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone — everything was in other people’s names. I had zero money.”
Stone, then 43, was in seemingly good health when she suffered her stroke. After a string of well-received performances in films like “Basic Instinct” and “Casino,” she was considered a major box office draw at the time, too.
But the stroke significantly affected Stone’s health, with the actor telling Brain & Life magazine in 2018: “I came out of the hospital looking like teeth on a stick. At that time, they didn’t have stroke recovery programs. Months later, I was really, really struggling.”
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That close brush with mortality, the Oscar nominee told The Hollywood Reporter, not only impacted her day-to-day routine moving forward but also prompted her to reexamine both her personal life and career.
“A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body,” she said. “I had a death experience and then they brought me back. I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasn’t positioned in my head where it was before.”
“And while that was happening, everything changed. My sense of smell, my sight, my touch,” she continued. “I couldn’t read for a couple of years. Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die.”
Stone’s biggest takeaway from the experience, however, was “to stay present and let go” when it came to life’s challenges.
“I decided not to hang onto being sick or to any bitterness or anger. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you,” she said. “But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose.”