Sharon Stone, Academy Award–nominated actress, humanitarian, and author of The Beauty of Living Twice, joins the Breakdown podcast for a wide-ranging conversation that moves from her childhood as a gifted child in rural Pennsylvania through a catastrophic stroke and near-death experience, the spiritual encounters that followed, the darkness she encountered after Basic Instinct, her philosophy of acting and energetic boundaries, and a live intuitive reading she gives to one of the hosts.
Childhood & Giftedness
Stone grew up in a tiny Pennsylvania town where kids drove tractors to school and life was defined by farm rhythms — deer hanging on swing sets, turkeys on clotheslines, water from a hose, snow shoveled by crawling out windows.
Her mother took her to the courthouse for an IQ test after teachers complained she was teaching other children cursive and algebra; the result: exceptionally high IQ, framed as “high potential intellect” rather than pathology.
She describes her abilities as heightened observation and pattern recognition, not mysticism — “I was just highly observant” — and suggests what people call psychic ability is mostly high pattern recognition.
Family Origins & Trauma
Both parents carried deep wounds: her mother was removed from an abusive home at nine during the Depression and placed as a child laborer; her father, descended from French royalty (Huguenot line of King Hugh and Queen Nora), was orphaned at four when an oil well explosion killed his family and the inheritance went to the oldest male relative.
Her father bought back the family mansion; Stone spent weekends and summers there with eccentric grandmother and great-aunt who “thought they were quite to the manor born.”
Father was a gentleman who pulled out chairs and stood when women entered; mother “had a mouth like a Portuguese dock worker” — a household of contrasts.
Pattern Recognition vs. Psychic Ability
Hosts ask whether pattern recognition is what psychic ability is; Stone agrees it’s the majority: “I think that’s the majority of what it is.”
She resonates with the idea that religion, spirituality, mysticism, and physics may describe the same field in different languages, and rejects human exceptionalism: “It’s like really being a flat-earther to me… such an ego trip to imagine that we’re the only life form or that we’re the superior life form even on our planet.”
Spiritual Framework & Gratitude
Stone identifies as Buddhist (philosophy, not religion) and spiritual: “I have a belief in a higher power. Do I know what that is? No. And I’m also really kind of glad that I don’t know what it is because that allows me to be open to finding, knowing, experiencing the what.”
She practices radical gratitude — for the table, the tree that became it, the octopus, the air — calling it “profoundly lazy” not to feel awe at the interconnectedness of all things.
Gratitude, she says, is the language of love that connects us to higher consciousness; awe animates the core energy of life.
The Stroke & Medical Ordeal
In 2001 (25 years ago), Stone suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage from a ruptured vertebral artery; she had a 1–5% chance of survival and no one expected recovery.
She read in People magazine that she might not live a month — leaked by a doctor she later fired who wanted fame; she calls out systemic bias: “homeless people and famous people get the worst medical care of everyone… women get treated just terribly.”
Her then-husband hung up on her calls for help, refused to take her to the hospital, and told doctors she was faking; a best friend threatened police to force action.
A head nurse saved her life by supporting her firing of the doctor who had scheduled exploratory brain surgery without consent while Stone was hemorrhaging — “he would have sawed off the top of my head while I was hemorrhaging into it.”
Surgery (9 hours, 22 coils to replace the vertebral artery) came via a young Dr. Michael Lawton, recruited after Stone demanded a specialist; Christopher Reeve’s similar injury left him paraplegic.
Recovery required relearning motor skills, reading, writing, talking, walking, thinking, remembering; she had previously had a photographic memory — “I would just look at them and go, great, great, great” — and had to “learn to learn.”
She lived in terror and paranoia for years; bank account drained, reputation destroyed, child taken away, career stalled — “I was the biggest movie star on the planet. And then suddenly no one wanted to hire me.”
The Unexplained Attack
Ten years post-stroke, a spine clinic under propofol discovered old thoracic/rib fractures healed inappropriately — “clear that you were attacked and it’s a felony” — confirming a violent assault she had no memory of, likely the day before the stroke.
She recalls being shoved into a closet, waking on the floor amid overturned furniture; ex-husband (a newspaper editor) took her to court seven times for custody, painted her as alcoholic/drug addict (she has celiac, didn’t drink, didn’t use drugs).
No investigation, no questions asked — “everyone just said, you know, she’s crazy.”
Orbs & Near-Death Experience
First night home from hospital, five orbs of golden, pulsing, swirling light appeared and communicated in “digital language” — ones and twos — for several days.
She asked, “I don’t know if I’m supposed to stay here or if I’m supposed to die.” They said: “You’re supposed to stay… but your destiny requires that we stay with you.”
She negotiated: “I can only stay if two of you will stay with my son” (age one); they agreed. He was later taken from her in custody battle.
She felt curiosity and peace, not fear.
Earlier, in the MRI tube, she believes she died and returned: doctor stood over her, “You’re bleeding into your brain.” She called her mother, then best friend, then entered the classic white-light tunnel — “traveling very, very quickly up through this very bright white light” — saw deceased friends at the top, felt a massive kick in the chest “like being kicked by a horse or a mule,” woke on the gurney feeling five or six years old with long hair (Alice in Wonderland sensation).
Doctor’s eyes appeared “vibratory and bright… imbued with a certain special brightness”; she urinated gallons (lymphatic release common in NDEs); ambulance ride included a vision of a Mayan-faced EMT whose presence brought safety.
In neuro ICU, ex-husband slid under her bed; staff allowed it — “he just wanted to be next to you.”
Recovery & Rehabilitation
Stone was on ~16 medications post-hospital; over 25 years tapered down; in the last eight months came off the final two against medical advice — “brutal, difficult, painful, physically violent, but I’ve done it.”
Motivated by two of three children being sober; she wanted to test if she could be sober from prescription meds in a pharma-driven world.
She attributes survival to being struck by lightning at 17 (iron in one hand, faucet in the other, well hit by lightning — threw her across kitchen, EKG showed it in her system for weeks); a Zurich cardiothoracic expert told her the lightning changed her body’s conductivity, which is why she survived the hemorrhage.
Father also struck by lightning same year (under a tree); “lightning doesn’t strike twice — clearly strikes twice.”
Father told mother she’d have a daughter named Sharon who would change the world; gave her Women Who Run with the Wolves; believed she was a pharaoh reincarnated but said “don’t tell people that.”
Political Backlash & Willie Nelson
During George W. Bush administration, Stone said on Rolling Stone cover she didn’t think he should be president — “president of the tennis club” — amiable but not presidential material; mother was driven.
Retaliation: five-star security flags on all airline tickets, strip searches of her, her babies, strollers, security person; tax audits; blacklisted from jobs — “I didn’t understand my position, the power of my position and the bounce back.”
Willie Nelson (simultaneously targeted by IRS) became a friend; told her: “You have a vocation. He has a job… eventually he’s not going to have a job, but you will always have a vocation. So why don’t you figure out what you would like to do with your vocation while you’re not being an actor?”
Willie story: after boyfriend broke up with her over her short hair (cut off post-Catwoman peroxide damage), Willie followed her around playing every breakup song he knew; Mick Fleetwood drummed on coffee table; became “the best party I’ve ever been to.”
Acting Philosophy: Core Self vs. Porousness
Stone distinguishes between “inhabiting a character” and maintaining the “core self” — “the golden self” — driving the character from the center, not letting the character dissolve the actor.
“You can’t be porous. If any of it gets in, all of a sudden the dark people, they want to be around you. They think, ‘Oh, you’re like me.’”
Method acting risks porosity; she contains emotions: “I’m having all these feelings, but guess what? It’s not appropriate to act on them… I was able to have my like superconscious self who could go good for you.”
She watches herself experiencing the role — respect and admiration for the character without needing the audience to share it.
Basic Instinct & Darkness
Basic Instinct (age 34) opened “dark doors” — she was young, inexperienced, didn’t know how to hold the core; “dark people, dark things, dangerous things came into my life because they thought you’re like me.”
Public conflated her with the character: “you couldn’t do that if you weren’t like that because you’ve mirrored me to me” — double standard vs. male actors (Pacino praised for exaggeration, she was judged for seduction).
“Just because the devil’s a very interesting person at the cocktail party doesn’t mean you should give him a seat.”
Darkness nearly killed her; “the light is what saved me… the universal consciousness of light that vibrated at my frequency.”
Learned: “You don’t give compassion to people who get up every day and choose a bad path… I will go from being engaged here to watching you like I’m watching TV.” Two modes: connection or detached observation — “I have detachment and observation."
"Difficult Actress” Myth & Boundaries
“I’m a super professional. I am not difficult. But you get the term difficult if you don’t have sex with sometimes people they want you to have sex with.”
“My sexuality is reserved for people I actually care about… We are not who loves us, but who we love.”
“Your understanding is not my problem.”
Relationships, Celibacy & Psychic Predictions
Celibate “for quite a while” — wants a companion now that kids are grown, “bored with” sex without care.
Two powerful psychics gave identical predictions: fame on Tina Turner scale (first psychic at 23, Tina’s psychic, said “the light is so bright I can’t see anything… it’s like sitting in front of the sun”), global stardom, world-changing work — but love would elude her until “almost 70… they’re going to be like you in a way.”
She feels host Mayim Bialik is “a piece of my puzzle” — “I have to know her” — wore white turtleneck for the interview because of that knowing.
Live Soul Reading
Stone takes Mayim’s hand, reads energy: asks about mother’s miscarriage (Mayim doesn’t know), name “Elaine” (Mayim’s mother’s given name, though she goes by Laney), black-and-white dog named Maya (similar to Mayim), number 67.
Host Jonathan notes 67 = bina (intuition/understanding) in Hebrew gematria.
Stone: “We have to talk to Elaine… that’s all I’m getting.”
She explains post-stroke sensory changes: seeing squares of color everywhere, enhanced color recognition, colors acquiring sound (synesthesia) — “my brain changed… part of it stopped working… I’m going to force myself to use the part of the brain that other people aren’t using.”
Current Creative Work
The Beauty of Living Twice published; second memoir ~3/4 done, seeking editor/publisher.
Writing a novel about nuns and the mafia.
Painting: studio at sharonstonestudio.com, seeking gallerist; art began with dream of arm as wing with shadow to release — “channel the same way that I channel as an actress.”
Currently in Euphoria (HBO) and In Memoriam (with Marc Maron, premiered at Tribeca).
