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Sharon Stone says she lost custody of her son because of Basic Instinct role

Actor claims a judge ruled she was an unfit mother because of her work in the sexually explicit movie

Inga Parkel
Wednesday 08 March 2023 11:33 EST
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Basic Instinct (1992) - Trailer

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Sharon Stone has recalled the backlash she endured after starring in Basic Instinct, including the legal consequences she claims it had.

Her breakout role in the 1992 erotic thriller as crime novelist Catherine Tramell – who seduces the detective (Michael Douglas) looking into her for the grisly murder of a rock star – led Stone to become one of Hollywood’s most popular sex symbols of the Nineties.

On a new episode of iHeartPodcast’s Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi, Stone spoke about the repercussions she faced after leading the film.

She said the worst consequence of all was losing custody of her then-eight-year-old adopted son, Roan Bronstein.

In 2004, Stone and her ex-husband Phil Bronstein were embroiled in a long-running legal battle over primary custody of Roan.

The now-64-year-old actor remembered the judge asking her son whether he knew “[his] mother makes sex movies”.

“This kind of abuse by the system, that it was considered what kind of parent I was because I made that movie,” Stone added.

“People are walking around with no clothes on at all on regular TV now and you saw maybe like a sixteenth of a second of possible nudity of me – and I lost custody of my child.

Sharon Stone and her son Roan Joseph Bronstein
Sharon Stone and her son Roan Joseph Bronstein (AFP via Getty Images)

“It broke my heart,” she said of the devastating effects it had on her. “I ended up in the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in the upper and lower chambers of my heart.”

Stone later went on to adopt two more children, Laird Vonne, 17, and Quinn Kelly, 16, in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Elsewhere in the interview, Stone looked back on the “humiliating” moment the audience “laughed” when her name was called at the 1993 Golden Globes. She had been nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Drama for Basic Instinct.

“It was horrible. I was so humiliated,” she remembered. “And I was like, ‘Does anybody have any idea how hard it was to play that part? How gut-wrenching and frightening and how much work it was to play this part?’

“I wanted to crawl into a hole.”

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