Sharon Stone opens up about the 'emptiness' she felt after her abusive grandfather died
Kit Roberts
Featured Image Credit: Marc Piasecki/FilmMagic
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Sharon Stone has opened up about how she felt after the death of her abusive grandfather.
Stone, 68, appeared on the podcast All There is Anderson Cooper, and spoke about how the death of her grandfather impacted her.
The actor had previously spoken about her feelings in her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice, which was published back in 2021, saying that she had felt 'glee and relief and emptiness' at her grandfather's death.
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On the podcast Cooper read from the section of the book where Stone opened up about her first experience of death, quoting: "It's a very weird thing when you're a kid and the first experience you have of death is glee and relief and emptiness."
At the time of his death Stone was 14 years old and her younger sister was 11.
"He was an abuser who abused my mom and did everything he could possibly do to get near us to be abusive of us," said Stone.
"And he was not a grandfather, he was a creature that we tried to avoid at all costs."
She recalled at his funeral that while you might expect people to have a 'gentle caring', she felt 'none of that'.
Stone even said that at the funeral she and her sister had approached the coffin, with her sister asking her: "Are we sure he's dead?"
She even asked Stone to 'check', with the actor recalling: "I reached in and shoved him in the shoulder, and he was stiff and didn't move, and I went, 'Yeah.'
"And I think I said, 'It's over.' And I think we still backed off."
Stone went on to talk about how she felt after they had confirmed he was dead, saying: "It will be a picture in my mind forever of that weird sense of emptiness — good emptiness. It's over."
The actor and her sister came forward about the sexual abuse they had suffered in 2021, when they spoke about it to the New York Times.
In the interview, they said that they had 'made this decision together' to share their story.
Speaking about it at the time, Stone recalled how her mom had reacted to the awful news, describing it as 'the whole pious, horrified, I-don't-really-want-to-talk-about-it-directly kind of thing.'
But she described how her mom had a 'major breakthrough' after her sister 'really went for it' with her.
Stone's mom would go on to pass away in 2025, with Stone opening up about how she felt she had to 'let go'.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.