Sharon Stone. Marleen Moise/WireImage
Sharon Stone is opening up about her mental health struggles.
“We’re all trying to confront our demons,” the Casino star, 66, said on a recent episode of the “Turkish Tea Talk With Alex Salmond” podcast. “We’re all acting out — me, too, and trying to figure out how to keep getting back up, keep helping people up even if we put them down, and make sure we’re all back up.”
Stone serves as a World Health Organization Global Health Ambassador, and she added that one in 10 people “on a global level” are having “a mental crisis.”
The Emmy winner said that people facing mental health issues can’t wait for government leaders to solve the problem.
“It must start with the individual,” Stone explained. “You have to get back up, get yourself together and help whoever you think you bumped around, and keep moving forward — and instant forgiveness. Instant forgiveness for yourself.”
Stone has battled depression since suffering a stroke and brain hemorrhage in 2001. Last year, she discussed how it severely impacted her career during The Hollywood Reporter’s Raising Our Voices luncheon in Los Angeles
“I recovered for seven years, and I haven’t had jobs since,” she said in May 2023. “When it first happened, I didn’t want to tell anybody because you know if something goes wrong with you, you’re out. Something went wrong with me — I’ve been out for 20 years. I haven’t had jobs. I was a very big movie star at one point in my life.”
In an interview with Vogue, Stone detailed how she was devastated by the illness.
“The right side of my face fell, my left foot was dragging severely, and I was stuttering very badly,” Stone told the publication in October 2023. “For the first couple of years I would also get these weird knuckle-like knots that would come up all over the top of my head that felt like I was getting punched. I can’t express how painful it all was.”
Stone revealed she takes medication daily to address the stuttering and severe brain seizures. She urged anyone with medical problems to not allow their disability to stop them from living a productive life.
“I think many people identify with their illness as ‘I am this thing,’ and it cannot be your identity,” she said. “In my case, so much was taken from me. I lost custody of my child, I lost my career and was not able to work, I was going through a divorce and being put through the ringer, I lost so much, and I could have allowed that to define me. But you have to stand up and say, OK, that happened, and now what? What am I made of?’”
The Basic Instinct actress explained that she didn’t share many details of her experience because she was scared of the reaction.
“I hid my disability and was afraid to go out and didn’t want people to know,” she said. “I just thought no one would accept me.”
Stone began to share her conduction publicly after her friend Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, encouraged her to tell her story.
