Sharon Stone: The Unbelievable Brightness of Being

Q: Did you have surgery?

A: Oh yeah. First they went in through my femoral artery up to my brain, but they missed it. Days went by and they thought I was okay, like I might have had a ruptured vessel that had bled itself out. But I began hallucinating. Nine days later they agreed to go in again, and thank God they found it. My artery had torn to a thread, just pumping blood into my brain. They put these platinum coils in and shut the artery down permanently.

Q: Did your brain hemorrhage change you profoundly as far as belief goes?

A: I just had to surrender the remainder of my resistance. I'm so clear that I didn't live for nothing. I passed through such a narrow corridor to arrive here in safety that I just have to give it up. It's not that it changed me as much as it relieved the remainder of my fears.

Q: You don't have fear anymore?

A: When fear comes up for me, it's a very short-lived thing. What's that song, "Just a Closer Walk with Thee"? I have a closer walk.

Q: You told Katie Couric in a special that you crossed over to the other side and saw people you knew who had passed away.

A: That was in that initial period in the hospital when I was hemorrhaging, and I blew into that white light thing.

Q: Did that experience change the way you think about death?

A: Yes. The sadness one feels is about your loss, but you don't need to miss them because they're only just an inch away, and they're not really away from you, they're near you. They know you, see you, care for you. All the time. You shouldn't feel distant from them, because there is no distance.

Q: So there is no doubt in your mind anymore that there's an afterlife?

A: No, no, no, no, no. Or that it's divine. Or that it's fabulous. Or that it's a gift.

Q: Why do you think you came back?

A: My little boy is a powerful part of that. I have a lot to work out with Phil. We have a marvelous time together raising our son. I'm sure that will continue.

Q: How did you explain to Roan that you and Phil are not going to be together?

A: We haven't worked that out yet.

Q: How exactly did that incident with Phil and the Komodo dragon happen?

A: Phil is calm in pressure situations. That thing was trying to pull him off his feet. It had his foot in its mouth. Phil stepped down on its jaw to pin it to the ground, but in order to do that he had to put its teeth through his foot, which took courage. Then he pulled himself together, reached down and grabbed this thing's jaws, pulled them apart and threw it off him. Then he kicked his feet through the door. I pulled him through and threw him on the ground and tourniquetted his foot. And I looked him in the eye, and said, "You are not going to have a heart attack! Look at me! I need you to breathe with me." I couldn't get my cell phone to work, and they wouldn't help me get an ambulance--they didn't want an incident. But I finally got him to a trauma center. And he was in the hospital for a long time, because those dragons have deadly bacteria. They bite a buffalo and follow it for ten days until it dies.

Q: Looking back today, can either of you ever joke about what happened?

A: You know, we don't think it's that funny. He had to be in intensive care for a long time. But when he had the cast on his leg, we got him a kimono that said, "Kimono Not Komodo."

Q: Before either of these events, you became a mother, adopting Roan Joseph, who's now three. Did you have to wait long before you could adopt?

A: The adoption happened quickly, almost like a spiritual dance. We don't talk about details because it was a closed adoption, but it appeared from God. We were on the phone with the doctor in the delivery room when he was born. From the time he was born until the time he was in my arms was nine hours.

Q: What was your reaction when you first saw him?

A: I thought about the miracle of his feet--that God could make feet. How could one person be mean to another person when feet can come like that?

Q: Did you feel like a mother immediately?

A: I worried that I wouldn't have a maternal instinct, because I wasn't going to give birth to him. But it's not like that. It comes from them. Adoption is just another of God's great big birth canals. I know more people with adopted children than I do with birth children, and their children look more like them than many people's birth children do. It's uncanny. Roan looks exactly like my dad. His walk is exactly like Phil's.

Q: What have you learned about yourself since becoming a mother that you didn't know before?

A: The best thing I think about being a mom is that I always try to be more like him rather than try to get him to be like me. If you listen to children, the very wisdom that they arrive with will reignite your connection to your own wisdom.

Q: Your marriage has been in the news because Phil filed for divorce. Was it a mutual parting?

A: It's not something I want to get into. When God closes a door, he opens a window. My job is not to jump out.

Q: A tabloid story about Phil claimed that his publisher ordered him into anger-management therapy, apparently because some of the staff of the Chronicle were alarmed by his tantrums. Was that true?

A: No. But I'm not going to discuss my husband's life. If you want to talk to him, you can.

Q: Was there ever an issue of his wanting you to be more of a stay-at-home mom?

A: I don't think so. My feeling is that to answer to gossip is ridiculous.

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