Actress Sharon Stone says she was nearly wheeled into exploratory brain surgery in 2001 that she never agreed to, after her then-husband, former San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein, allegedly authorized the procedure on her behalf without her knowledge.
Stone, 68, described the episode on a recent appearance on the “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown” podcast. She had been admitted to a neurological intensive care unit after suffering a subarachnoid hemorrhage and stroke, and was drifting in and out of consciousness.
“First I woke up, and I was being wheeled to exploratory brain surgery,” she said. “He had signed me up for exploratory brain surgery without my knowledge or consent. And I woke up again because the gurney hit something on the floor.”
According to Stone, the doctor pushing her gurney told her not to worry because “it’s all been taken care of” and continued moving her toward the operating room despite her objections.
“So I stood up on the gurney with my hospital gown open, my a– in the breeze, and suddenly everyone came running – nurses, orderlies, everybody,” Stone said. “And this a–hole doctor, and he had a fax in his hand and he was screaming, ‘You can’t do that. I’m on the phone with People magazine.'”
Stone said she confronted the doctor, insisting she had never consented, only for him to respond, “Yes, you did. I said you did. And I’m on the phone with People magazine,” suggesting he had already told the outlet she was in surgery. When he argued he had a right to speak with the magazine as her doctor, Stone said she fired him on the spot.
“He said, ‘You can’t do that,’ and this head nurse who saved my life, this like 50-year-old head nurse, beautiful blonde woman, came out, and she said, ‘Well, she just did, sir. She just did,'” Stone recalled. “And she said, ‘Take her back to her room.’ And I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for her.”
Stone also alleged during the podcast interview that Bronstein delayed getting her to the hospital in the first place and later told doctors “that I was faking it.”
Stone has discussed the stroke’s aftermath before, writing in a 2014 essay for The Hollywood Reporter that she bled in her brain for nine days, spent two years relearning to walk and talk, and came home from the hospital stuttering and unable to read.
“I had a massive brain hemorrhage. So I know what the alternative to growing older is,” she wrote. “I don’t need someone to make me feel bad about growing older. I’ll tell you what makes you feel bad: when you think you might not.”
Stone and Bronstein separated in July 2003 and finalized their divorce in early 2004. A custody battle over their son, Roan, followed. In 2008, a San Francisco court rejected Stone’s bid to change a custody arrangement that made Bronstein’s San Francisco home the boy’s primary residence, granting Stone visitation instead.
Stone has said she believes her image from “Basic Instinct” worked against her during that custody fight. “I had had a brain hemorrhage and was an actress who had made sexy movies,” she told AARP in January 2012, describing herself as “broken” while still expected to appear at fundraising events despite having “lost my child” and “lost my health.”
