Sharon Stone is looking back on her 2001 stroke with mixed feelings.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday, the “Basic Instinct” actress revealed she lost $18 million in savings after suffering from the stroke, which caused a nine-day brain bleed, due to “people taking advantage” of her during her seven-year recovery as she stepped away from Hollywood.
“I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone. My refrigerator, my phone — everything was in other people’s names,” Stone said.
“I had zero money.”
The actress, 66, went on to reveal that the trauma of her injury “100 percent” changed the way her brain functions and the way she thinks.
“A Buddhist monk told me that I had been reincarnated into my same body,” Stone said.
“I had a death experience and then they brought me back. I bled into my brain for nine days, so my brain was shoved to the front of my face. It wasn’t positioned in my head where it was before,” the actress continued.
“And while that was happening, everything changed,” Stone recalled. “My sense of smell, my sight, my touch. I couldn’t read for a couple of years.”
“Things were stretched and I was seeing color patterns. A lot of people thought I was going to die.”
Now that she’s healed, the “Casino” star said she was able to move on after losing her money because she decided to “stay present and let go.”
“I decided not to hang onto being sick or to any bitterness or anger. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive,” Stone said.
“So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose.”
