Sharon Stone says she “lost half” of her fortune to a bad “banking thing,” presumably referring to the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
The Basic Instinct actress and activist 65, attended Thursday’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund’s An Unforgettable Evening in Beverly Hills, where she was the recipient of the Courage Award and addressed the star-studded crowd. She spoke about the organization and its contributions to cancer research, infusing personal comments into her remarks, including those about her finances.
While encouraging attendees to donate more to the charity, she said, at points in tears, “I know that thing that you have to get on and figure out how to text the money is difficult. I’m a technical idiot, but I can write a f****ing check. And right now, that’s courage, too, because I know what’s happening. I just lost half my money to this banking thing, and that doesn’t mean that I’m not here.”
She didn’t state exactly what “banking thing” she meant, but less than a week ago, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, marking the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. It has resulted in financial market volatility.
Stone prefaced her comments at the event by saying that she usually speaks “off the cuff because, as you well know, I don’t give a s***,” but she had notes last night.
While acknowledging breast cancer survivors in the room, and discussing mammograms, she revealed she was once told she had had breast cancer, “because I had a tumor that was larger than my breast.” While it ended up being misdiagnosed, “I went to the hospital saying, ‘If you open me up and it’s cancer, please take both my breasts,’ because I am not a person defined by my breasts. You know, that might seem funny coming from me since you’ve all seen ’em.
Stone, who wrote in her 2021 memoir about having surgery to remove tumors from her breasts in the 1990s, continued, “You’ve all seen ’em since the surgery and you don’t even know it. So don’t ever feel compelled not to get a mammogram, not to get a blood test, not to get surgery because it doesn’t matter. I’m standing here telling you I had one-and-a-half and more tissue of my breasts removed and none of you knew it.”
Stone, who suffered a near-fatal stroke in 2001, also mentioned her late brother, Patrick Stone, who died in February at age 57 due to heart disease.
“My brother just died, and that doesn’t mean that I’m not here,” she said of activism. “This is not an easy time for any of us. This is a hard time in the world, but I’m telling you what, I’m not having some politician tell me what I can and cannot do. How I can and cannot live, and what the value of my life is and is not. So stand up. Stand up and say what you’re worth. I dare you. That’s what courage is.”
The event, held at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire, drew celebrities including Rebel Wilson and fiancée Ramona Agruma, Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin, Julianne Hough, Lori Loughlin and daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli, Kathy and Rick Hilton, Nia Vardalos, Paul Wesley and more. Maroon 5 performed with Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo, also hitting the red carpet.
Stone has long been known for her candor — and recently revealed that when she lost custody of her son in the 1990s, it was a result of her 1992 film Basic Instinct. On iHeartRadio’s Table for Two podcast this month, she said she lost custody of Roan Bronstein, now 22, because of her nude scene in the film. She recalled the judge asking the boy at the time if he knew his mom “makes sex movies.” After losing custody, she experienced heart problems, experiencing “extra heartbeats in my upper and lower chamber of my heart.” Stone is also mom to Laird Stone, 17, and Quinn Stone, 16.
