Sharon Stone has reflected on near-fatal stroke she suffered back in 2001, admitting it left her with a sense of ‘peace’.
The 65-year-old actress admitted the experience was life changing as she chatted with Harper’s Bazaar Spain before posing for a striking photoshoot.
She explained: ‘My stroke left me with an intense sense of peace. Today I can say that I have known death very closely.
‘In those moments I felt that my deceased friends were coming to get me, and that removed all traces of fear.
‘I lost my panic to try anything. When you experience something like this, you learn that nothing in life is really important and you understand that failure is just the beginning of success.’
Sharon Stone reflected on near-fatal stroke she suffered back in 2001, admitting it left her with a sense of ‘peace’ as she chatted with Harper’s Bazaar Spain
The 65-year-old actress admitted the experience was life changing as she chatted with Harper’s Bazaar Spain before posing for a striking photoshoot
Sharon was just 43 when she suffered her stroke and had to learn to walk, talk, speak and write again following the horrific incident, which ‘changed her life forever’.
Doctors initially misdiagnosed her medical emergency and nearly sent her home untreated.
The Basic Instinct star explained the pain in her head as feeling ‘lighting bolt-like’ just before being rushed to the hospital all those years ago.
She suffered a hemorrhage that left her with a nine-day brain bleed and one percent chance of survival after surgery.
Sharon’s vision was also affected and that she suffered memory loss during the initial stages of her recovery.
The toll the whole experience took would also manifest in her experiencing long bouts of depression throughout her decade-long recovery.
Fast forward two decades and Sharon is only now just comfortable in sharing her story because she had been worried about the reaction she’d get both publicly and within the acting industry.
‘I hid my disability and was afraid to go out and didn’t want people to know,’ she previously revealed, crediting Michael J. Fox in encouraging her to share her experience. ‘I just thought no one would accept me.’
Barring a few exceptions, the Mosaic star maintains those in Hollywood have not been supportive of her career in the wake of her health scare, and that she doesn’t get ‘hired a lot’ because she’s a ‘disability hire.’
Sharon said: ‘My stroke left me with an intense sense of peace. Today I can say that I have known death very closely. I felt that my deceased friends were coming to get me’
Sharon looked incredible as she posed for a striking cover shoot while opening up about her health woes
Sharon has found some salvation in now being on the board of the Barrow Neurological Foundation, which supports the medical institute her brain surgeon Dr. Michael Lawton leads in Arizona.
With the lack of acting roles coming her way, Sharon’s second calling includes a flourishing painting career, where she gets to scratch her creative itch anytime she pleases.
And now, she pushes forward in her life firmly set in not letting her disability define her.
‘I think many people identify with their illness as “I am this thing,” and it cannot be your identity,’ she shared, before opening up about some of the losses she suffered.
‘In my case, so much was taken from me. I lost custody of my child, I lost my career and was not able to work, I was going through a divorce and being put through the ringer, I lost so much, and I could have allowed that to define me.
‘But you have to stand up and say, ‘Okay, that happened, and now what? What am I made of?”‘
Sharon was just 43 when she suffered her stroke and had to learn to walk, talk, speak and write again following the horrific incident (pictured in 2001 shortly before the stroke)
