Sharon Stone Says Her Career Never Recovered After She Suffered a Stroke in 2001: “I’ve Been out for 20 Years”

Sharon Stone has opened up about the life-changing stroke and brain hemorrhage she had in 2001, and the unexpected ways in which it affected her career.

Speaking at The Hollywood Reporter‘s Raising Our Voices gala, Stone revealed she was given a 1 percent chance of survival at the time. She survived – but she says her place in Hollywood has never been the same.

“I recovered for seven years, and I haven’t had jobs since,” she said.

“When it first happened, I didn’t want to tell anybody because you know if something goes wrong with you, you’re out. Something went wrong with me — I’ve been out for 20 years. I haven’t had jobs,” Stone continued. “I was a very big movie star at one point in my life.”

Stone admitted that speaking up for herself caused her “a lot of problems in the business.” She said, “I broke a lot of glass ceilings on the top of my head. I want to tell you that it hurt. It hurt to get paid. It hurt to fight the studio heads. It hurt to make boundaries.”

In 2001, the actress was still thriving off the success of Basic Instinct and Casino, for which she earned her first and only Academy Award nomination.

Stone has spoken candidly before about recovering from her stroke. Speaking to Variety in 2019, she said people were “brutally unkind” to her while she was recovering.

“From other women in my own business to the female judge who handled my custody case, I don’t think anyone grasps how dangerous a stroke is for women and what it takes to recover — it took me about seven years,” she said.

She also said she could already feel Hollywood shutting her out at the time. Stone explained that the work she did with Dior “rescued” her.

“But I had to remortgage my house. I lost everything I had. I lost my place in the business. I was like the hottest movie star, you know?” she said.

“It was like Miss Princess Diana and I were so famous — and she died and I had a stroke. And we were forgotten.”