Sharon Stone Gets Tearful as She Recalls Her Mother's Final Moments: I Realized I Had to 'Ignore [Her] So She Will Die'
Sharon Stone Gets Tearful as She Recalls Her Mother's Final Moments: I Realized I Had to 'Ignore [Her] So She Will Die'
Kimberlee SpeakmanFri, June 26, 2026 at 2:50 PM UTC
0
Sharon Stone on the 'All There Is with Anderson Cooper podcast and with her late mother Dorothy StoneCredit: CNN/Youtube; SGranitz/WireImage -
Sharon Stone opened up on the All There Is with Anderson Cooper podcast about her late mother Dorothy’s difficult childhood and how it shaped their complicated relationship
The actress also revealed the emotional challenge of letting her mother go peacefully in her final moments without hearing the words she longed for
Stone announced Dorothy’s death in July 2025, nearly four years after she suffered an acute stroke
Sharon Stone is reflecting on the difficult death of her mother, Dorothy.
The Basic Instinct star, 68, admitted on the All There Is with Anderson Cooper podcast the complicated feelings she had surrounding her mother’s death last year at the age of 91 and the difficult decision she had to make to let her go.
“My mom behaved often as if she didn’t like me at all,” Stone admitted on the podcast. “She had a very, very awful childhood, and was removed from her home when she was 9 [years old] because she was so violently abused.”
“When my mom died, she was at my house, and I was taking care of her, but she was terrified to die because she was afraid her parents would be there. So I had to lie to her and tell her that her father was in jail and her mother was in a mental hospital, and they weren’t going to be there,” she recalled.
She admitted that due to this, her mother was “really fighting” to hold on despite the doctors titrating the morphine doses. However, hours passed and eventually, Stone determined that she was the one holding her mother back.
“... I finally realized, I have to let go. I need to stop walking in the room. I need to go upstairs and ignore my mother so she will die,” the actress admitted. “I need to detach and release, and she’s only going to die if I let go…”
Sharon Stone (R) and mother Dorothy Stone in Beverly Hills, California in 2012.Credit: David Livingston/Getty
An emotional Stone noted to host Anderson Cooper, 59, that this was “hard” for her because she wanted to hear “those words” of comfort from her mother that she longed for her whole life.
Advertisement
“I wanted her to say, ‘I’m proud of you. I love you. I’m sorry. You’re important to me,’ and I wasn’t going to get them,” she tearfully admitted. “And I had to make peace with the fact that my mom was not going to do that. In order for her to die in peace, I had to release her.”
“And sometimes, the person that the person is meanest to, you find out is the person they’re most attached to because they feel safest to take it out on you,” she added.
The Casino actress announced the death of her mother in July 2025 on Instagram, writing, “My hilarious, complex mother died,” alongside a picture of a smiling Dorothy and laughing Sharon sitting on a sofa together.
A photo of Sharon Stone and her mother, Dorothy.Credit: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage
Prior to her death, Stone posted updates and pictures of her mother on social media. In November 2021, she announced that Dorothy had suffered an acute stroke. She also shared more positive messages including a picture of her in November 2023, with the words, "MOM, born in ‘33. Looking gorgeous.”
— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
However, she also described her mother’s parenting style as “tough,” sharing in a 2021 career retrospective at the Zurich Film Festival that feminism was among “the rules of my household."
She recalled asking Dorothy, “‘Why [do] you never let me lean on you?' She said: 'Because I taught you to stand on your two goddamn feet.' "
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
