One of the most controversial scenes in cinema had serious consequences for the life of Sharon Stone, the actress who played the character Catherine Tramell in the feature.
In an interview with the podcast Table for Two with Bruce Bozz, the veteran said that she lost custody of her eldest son, Roan, now 22 years old, due to the scene with her legs crossed without panties.
“When the judge asked my son, my little boy, ‘Did you know your mother makes sex movies?,’ that’s the kind of abuse of the system, that’s the kind of mother I was considered because I made that movie. People are walking around with no clothes on on TV and you’ve seen maybe a sixteenth of a second of possible nudity from me – and I’ve lost custody of my son,” the actress said.
At the time of the lawsuit, the film had already been released for 9 years, and even so, it had a strong impact on the court decision. The actress’ ex-husband Phil Bronstein, whom she married in 1998 and adopted Roan in 2000, filed for divorce in 2003.
Sharon tried to seek primary custody of Roan but was denied by the judge, who claimed that Bronstein could provide a more stable environment for the boy. “I ended up at the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in both the upper and lower chambers of my heart. It broke my heart,” recalled the artist.
Tricked to record scene
In the autobiographical book ‘The Beauty of Living Twice’, released in 2021, Sharon reveals that she was deceived by director Paul Verhoeven to record the interrogation scene in ‘Basic Instinct’.
According to the actress, the production asked her to take off her white panties, as the color of the piece would be reflecting the light in the studio. “We can’t see anything. I just need you to take your panties off as the white is catching the light so we know you have your panties on,” she wrote.
The Dutch director defends himself against the accusations. In an interview with Variety, Verhoeven claims that the actress knew what was being recorded at the time.
“She knew exactly what we were doing. When my friend told (the woman) that we could see her vagina, she replied, “Sure, that’s why I do it.” So Sharon and I decided to do a similar sequel. My memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory. Her version is impossible.”