Sharon Stone has a job! She’s part of the new Netflix series Ratched, based on the character Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Louise Fletcher won an Oscar for playing Nurse Ratched in the movie! The movie is really good, and so is the book. I’m not sure what I think of reimagining the movie/book into a series based on the head of the asylum though. Anyway, to promote the series, Sharon spoke to the Telegraph about sexism and harassment in Hollywood, and how she actually feels sorry for Donald Trump. Some highlights:
On ageing: “You don’t even realize how much [looks] matter until they start to go.” It’s a “big, fat stupid lie if anyone says that they don’t.”
Her workouts at the age of 62: Her workout routine consists of doing “30 squats a day, and lift[ing] these 7-pound lead balls when I’m watching TV, just because I can’t get to the gym these days.”
She felt vindicated by the #MeToo movement. She recalled one director who, “asked me to sit on his lap every day to receive direction.” Stone also remembered a male actor in the cast of the 1984 film “Irreconcilable Differences,” who once yelled in reference to her on a crowded set, “‘Would you get out of the f—king way? I can’t even see her t-ts!”
She thinks there’s still room for butt-pats and whistles: “Fankly, I don’t really care if they [people] pat me on the rear…It was a lot of fun when we were allowed to whistle and flirt, but that era has passed. Because sometimes it’s just a small thing – a look or a nod – and sometimes you just have to walk away or laugh. And sometimes you really have to put your foot down.”
On trying out dating sites: “Dating sites are just not a successful thing. Because real chemistry, that frisson, that happens in the air – not on a site. And people are becoming less socially adept because of those sites.”
On Donald Trump. “Actually, I have empathy for him. I think he’s had some childhood trauma. I look at this man and it feels to me like whatever his traumas are, he is torturing himself and hurting himself. And it’s affecting so many people that are coming out in support [of him], with Nazi masks and all that stuff. Those are also people who have a heartbreaking level of internal rage, and that rage comes from feeling so insecure and so hurt.”
[From Page Six & The Independent]
Wow, this is a whole mess! Let’s tackle the Trump stuff first. I don’t doubt that there are “reasons” why Trump is a degenerate rapist and traitor. I’m sure his father was a monster, and he’s continued that cycle of abuse and tragedy with his own children. But mostly, I don’t give a f–k. There comes a point when the motives of an abuser don’t really matter, because all you need to do is GTFO. That’s how it is with Trump – spare me the tragic backstory, he’s doing real damage to real people right now and we need to get the hell out of the White House and not faff about. And I’m sorry, why do we need to humanize Nazis again? Enough. A Nazi might paint pretty pictures or bake a really good pie, but he’s still a f–king Nazi.
As for what she says about sexual harassment and flirting or whatever… I believe that her intention was to say that there are some situations which have some nuance, and I believe that too. I also believe that women of certain generations were just brought up to simply accept harassment as a daily experience.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
F*ck Trump and f*ck his childhood trauma and frankly, f*ck her for making bullshit excuses and showing her bullshit white privilege.
Plenty of people experience trauma and don’t become raging narcissistic fascists intent on burning everything down because they’re not getting the attention they want.
This monster is just another rich white boy who gets away with murder while people sigh and say “what could have made him this way?”, while POC are gunned down for existing and those same people tear apart every bit of their life to find a reason to try and justify them being killed in cold blood.
Preach girl!! Preach!!!!!! Amen to all of this!!! So effing tired.
yeah, what Diana said. PREACH IT.
Same!
Thank you! That is ALL I came onto this story to say.
I don’t give a shit about HIS trauma. He’s had over 50 yrs. AS AN ADULT to deal with it. I care about the PERMANENT TRAUMA he imposed on the thousands of people, the KIDS, he put in cages, the DECENT PEOPLE of America…OUR DAILY TRAUMA living this nightmare, living with this virus, losing loved ones and friends… THIS IS WHAT *I* care about.
Sorry, Sharon, but go sit your squatted butt down and STFU.
Whatever his trauma is he and his fqmilyvcan deal with it in prison not the White House.
Exactly!!! @grabbyhands Wow, every day another one shows their colors. I’m past disappointment (because honestly, idgaf about Sharon Stone) but damn. And all this after she rightfully went on a tirade when her sister was ill with covid. So I just…don’t get it. But white supremacy and bullshit and white women’s desire to make excuses for it know no limits. Damn. She wants to talk victim? How about Black people in this country? How about BIPOC, queer folks, and so many other under-represented demographics suffering immeasurably from 45’s horrors? Disgusted by her.
This! ^^^
Beautifully said!
Yeah, I can understand that he was a victim in childhood and still also think that he’s a racist, corrupt a-hole as president and want him out of office and preferably behind bars.
I feel sorry for the people who were injured or lost their lives in domestic terrorist attacks orchestrated by these poor “hurt” extremists.
Yeah, every psycho has a painful past. I get what Stone is saying, but every time Trump opens his pie-hole, empathy goes out the window.
Didn’t Trump have a brother who in the eyes of the family wasn’t acomplished enough because he was “just” a pilot of big passenger planes?
What a miserable family that was. And is.
That’s no excuse, tho. Just saying he learnt from the worst.
I just listened to a lengthy interview with Mary Trump, the brothers daughter, and it was very enlightening as to that family dynamic, which was horrible.
But I have no empathy for him, as he took that trauma and inflicted it on people, mostly women, for most of his life, and now on the entire country, and the entire world. He is hateful, and there is no excuse for that.
One of the strangest things recently about Trump as a phenomenon / cult of personality, is that his other brother died recently (Robert Trump, died August 15) and it barely made the news. Any other president, any other politician who had a sibling die and people would expect them to be affected. Even if the siblings didn’t care for each other, you would expect a performance of grief and introspection. Even if it was totally cynical to gain political points, you would expect a politician to start incorporating stories about his brother into campaign speeches, or request some time to focus on the family. Not only is Trump, as a marmalade malignant narcissist, incapable of caring that his brother died, his fans don’t seem to care that he doesn’t care. In that sense, it is a tragedy for American culture that so many people can’t comprehend grief or compassion, or if they do recognize it they only see it as a weakness.
Having said that: shut up, Sharon Stone.
He DID have his brother’s coffin at the WH briefly for a photo op. Then he left it to go play golf. He was *really* broken up, can’t you tell?? : /. (yes, sarcasm).
Well he couldn’t care less that 220,000+ Americans have died from Covid 19, so I’m not the least surprised at this.
Frontline on PBS had a great program on this yesterday, and yes. The psycho Trump father thought he was weak and not a killer for being kind and wanting to be a pilot. They bullied him out of the family and he died of alcoholism.
This bullying and toxic masculinity killer BS is what shaped Cheeto; he became an unpopular bully in military school. Oh and his mother didn’t love him either, she stopped raising him at age 2 basically after a health issue.
The show had Joe’s life too, good and bad, so worth watching.
F*$k that! What a stupid out of touch while trying to be deep comment. Lots of people go through hardships; some of my friends were refugees at some point and flee genocides that killed 1/2 of their families, others (and some of the same) had violent parents, life can be pretty awful even as a kid. Yet the vast majority of us don’t grow up to be greedy, corrupt nazis as a result, our traumas taught us the importance of empathy and solidarity and we channel our anger to bring good to the world. The only 2 Trumps I have some sympathy for is Baron and Fred Jr who drank himself to death.
He had a lifetime of means, access and money to seek professional help. He’s 70 something not 7.
Exactly – he came from a privileged background. Millions of people have had only a fraction of what Trump has had AND experienced far more childhood trauma but they have managed to lead decent lives and have empathy for their fellow human beings.
Yeah, I really don’t care how Cheetolini got so gross and evil. I just want him gone.
I have empathy for my extremely f*cked up father. I also recognize he’s toxic and violent and I maintain a no-contact relationship with him for my emotional and physical wellbeing.
And I wouldn’t put him in charge of effing *anything*
Sharon, take many seats and STFU.
No excuse for that vile excuse of a human being. He belongs behind bars.
I think she’s coming from an actor’s standpoint with the Trump stuff… like, how would she play a villain? What’s the backstory? This seems like some acting school bullshit that she can’t separate back to normal life, where sometimes assholes are just assholes.
We all know people who had major traumas in childhood, we may not know who they are because that wasn’t an excuse for them to become abusers themselves and they’re determined to break the cycle. So, no pass from me
I feel sorry for aging white women riding barbed wire fences in order to tiptoe through perceived delicate matters simply to appease as many as possible and maintain some relevance. She probably f@cked him once. I wish I could get behind all women because they’re women. But as an aging white woman myself, I really don’t have time to ‘pussy’foot around personal myopias.
@Mabs A’M – Great take. Most women, in general, have a hard time speaking frankly when there is a problem because they don’t want to offend anyone. We’ve been conditioned to “keep the peace,” especially within our families, but that is an outdated motto to live by. It’s much more productive to communicate honestly and to “let the chips fall where they may.” I’ve always been that way (and was called “too blunt”), but I’m at the point in my life where I really dgaf. It’s a fact of life: Not everyone’s going to like you. Accept it and move on.
And about Trump… he’s had plenty of time to fix himself. No excuses.
Childhood trauma??!! To hell with his trauma, people need to put up with his racism and all around craziness because of his trauma??!!?? We all have trauma and manage to be responsible adults. Girl bye.
The only trauma this idiot had was not getting his azz whipped. He is a 74 yr old rich man child with Big mouth and no competence. As Keith Olberman puts it, Trump is the worst person in the world. A creature!
Yeah, NO. While it sounds like he did have a seriously toxic father and clearly is damaged, and is passing on this level of dysfunction to his own children (hello, Don Jr and whatever the hell he’s using) I’ll save my empathy to the people who are not able to help themselves from him including the over 500 immigrant children who have been separated from their parents, the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died of covid from his ineptitude, the countless people who may lose insurance coverage due to pre existing conditions, the millions of people who are out of work, out of savings, and standing in line at food banks, the millions of Americans who are black or POC or Muslim and are dealing with the unleashed racism of his cult. Understanding why someone is the way they are doesn’t mean you have to feel sorry for them when their “hurt” is hurting millions of other people.
All of this!
It’s far too late for the Don Jr. generation, but I do feel sad for the very young kids in the family, they’re growing up in this circus, surrounded by greedy, selfish, and flat out evil people. I hope some of them manage to break free of it.
Maybe he shouldn’t have run for PRESIDENT and gone to THERAPY instead of making all of us have to run to therapy to deal with fresh trauma after fresh trauma thanks to him.
It is really frustrating when people cannot accept that some people actively make choices that harm others, on purpose. Experiencing abuse is not a catalyst to becoming a rapist.
It makes me think of my father, whose older brother died at 7 months old so he was raised with so much love because he was so precious to my grandparents. There was no precipitating event that made him beat my pregnant mother so badly her kidneys bled. Some adults will actively chose to cause others harm without a single reason.
Sometimes there is no reason.
I have empathy for Trump. Doesn’t mean I want him to be president, or to be making any decisions, or think he should be off the hook for his criminal acts. He’s a horrible, horrible person. But I have empathy for him.
Listen, I listened to and read Mary Trump’s book. And yes, I do believe that f**king piece of garbage in the White House has serious childhood trauma issues stemming mostly from his sociopathic father. BUT guess what? So did I, so do a lot of people!!! You get help and you go to therapy and deal with it, and become a better person. WHAT you don’t do, is deny it, bury it, and continue on in your life being a psychopathic, habitual liar, narcissistic egotistical maniac, who is still seeking the approval of his dead father – at whatever means he can!! And now, the entire country is suffering because of his psychological problems – so F**K THAT!! I have no empathy for that.
Furthermore, let’s face it, most seriously mentally disturbed people do come from some sort of trauma or abuse. People are not born serial killers or complete sociopaths. But again, there comes a choice in dealing with it or NOT. Trump chose to never deal with a GOD damn thing, and we all suffering the consequence of that choice!
I know we’re all supposed to focus on the Trump part, but can I just say? This new Netflix series Sharon is starring in, ‘Ratched’ is a blast. It’s dark, it’s weird, it’s funny, and what’s especially great: it’s filled with really excellent FEMALE characters. I really recommend it!
The essence of white privilege and Hollywood fame privilege: “Poor tornado – poor hurricane – someone must have hurt them somewhere”. STFU. That’s not how empathy works.
I have empathy for the child he was. That stops as an adult when he makes decisions to be a horrible person. My natural dad is a pathological liar and narcissistic. I feel for what he went through as a child but he made decisions to not get help but rather continue down destructive paths not caring about the damage he caused. I feel the same for people like Don jr who apparently did try to make a break. But once he went back and threw on fully,then, nope, eff him too.
All of this. I am also a child of a narcissist (who also had their own traumatic childhood). But once you become an adult, it is your job to try to figure your shit out & not perpetuate that harm on those around you.
Came to say the exact same thing. I have empathy for the child he was like I have empathy for baby Gacy. I see so many children come through my clinic who have endured so much…and often times they are lost to follow up for help because of the parents or foster system, so we live with knowing in a few years we’ll probably see them come through the forensic unit for any given crime. It’s a strange world of, when does the victim become the victimizer? This can go for psychological abuse just as much as any other type of abuse. I would even argue it’s important to remember that child, that baby, that powerless human because evil and cruelty are not (often) inherent. These things are learned, encouraged…when we deny the history of someone who has caused such pain and harm it’s easy to lose sight (*I believe*) that evil isn’t an accident. And once we remember evil isn’t an accident we can seek to call it out, treat it, remove it, whatever early on. I think it’s perfectly ok to say (and I do!) I have zero empathy for him now but I do encourage people to consider whatay have got us here. Empathy helps us give a damn, and if more people gave a damn 70 years ago we wouldn’t be in this mess. But we are…so CURRENTLY I’m happy to save my empathy for all children who grew up in shitty circumstances, painting a broad stroke, but fu-k Trump now and MOST OF ALL Fu-k all the people who helped prop him up to this point.
I, too have empathy for the child he was.
My MIL was a malignant narcissist and was an awful woman for 97 years. We called her on her bullshit for years, to no effect. She died recently, just two months shy of 98. God, she was awful. Tears? NO
Our beloved cat yesterday crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Both my husband and I have been despondent. That sweet kitty meant more to us than my MIL did. That’s quite telling, I would say.
Trump: F you. You could have gone to counseling to become a decent human, and yet you didn’t.
So because he’s had childhood trauma it’s okay that he’s a cheating, lying, hypocritical, immoral monster as an adult? It’s okay that he CHOOSES to be that way all because of his childhood trauma? STFU, Karen Sharon.
I just listened to Sharon Stone on The New Abnormal podcast and I swear she talked about listening to the Clarence Thomas confirmation and said that she was 13 or so. She said she yelled at the television at the unfairness of it all and her father commented something. Anyway I am younger than Sharon Stone and was a young adult watching this. It just seemed so odd.
Holy cow-yes, I am younger than she is and absolutely was a young adult during the Clarence Thomas confirmation.
I’m 52 and was working as a young adult at the time.
I have childhood trauma. And yet somehow I manage not to put babies in cages.
Does she voice the same sympathy for Putin? Bin Laden had a rough childhood as well. Or is the misguided empathy reserved for white American men?
THIS!! WHITE MEN GET SO MANY PASSES
Just STFU.
Feel sorry for kid Trump, sure. But he is a very grown adult and he has had the access and resources to get help for his problems and have never once done that. So no, no empathy for him.
I was watching the Live Abuse Free YT account’s videos on Chris Watts and his narcissism. Someone asked her if we should feel empathy for narcissists as they likely suffered narcissistic abuse from parents as children. She said you could and should feel empathy for them as CHILDREN but once they are adults they have a duty to get help and if they don’t…no empathy.
I think empathy does not mean that their (narcissistic) behaviour is in any way approved.
A very interesting documentary would be “the social dilemma”. We tend to live in bubbles that do not allow us to heal or even communicate.
Sharon is a better person than I.
Jane Fonda said exactly the same thing about Trump. People act the way they do because of their upbringing.
Trump is pathological. He’s a sociopath. Sure his dad was a racist abusive prick, but he had all those millions to buy himself the best therapy money could buy. Instead he’s become one of the worst abusers in our history. He’s an actual monster so he gets no empathy. To empathize with someone like that is dangerous. He’s a threat to the entire world. Every once in a while I’ll try to find some compassion for him in a Buddhist sense but then I remember he’s an evil person and I just can’t.
As for the ass grabs, I guess that’s from a generation where that was considered positive male attention in some twisted way. When I’ve had my ass grabbed I’ve been enraged by it. It’s such a violation of my body and such a disgusting example of male privilege. Do not fucking touch me.
I know people who have suffered terribly in life and they didn’t turn into monsters like Trump. He has selfish cruelty built into him.
Hmm. Slightly off topic but I’m not sure how “good” a book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is, really. For one thing, it’s quite misogynistic: the two standout female characters are 1) a “frigid,” castrating, power-hungry bitch whose comeuppance is having her uniform ripped open to expose her breasts, and 2) a dim but sweet hooker who lets her breasts fly free. Not a *whole* lot of nuance there… not to mention that McMurphy is a sex offender :/
I picked it up out of curiosity a few years ago and didn’t get far in. I don’t even like the movie, but sometimes the original story is better than what ends up on the screen. In this case, they look to be about the same—bad, lol. And the text was TINY. My dad thinks it’s brilliant; I think it’s a lot of shite!
She’s a narcissist like Trump. Moron.
This is that Pisces empathy that can be annoying. Either that Stone could just be condescendingly say it. Either way, idc what his trauma is. He’s traumatized the country and world tbh. F**k him.
Is she Bhuddist? I feel like she’s made really problematic statements before relating to China that stemmed from a misinterpretation of Bhuddism. Having empathy for people who have “wronged” you/people you hate is one of its tenets. This is why I failed as a Bhuddist.
I remember one of my meditation classes focusing on forgiving/finding empathy for someone I hate and it just made me furious.
I would love to see everyone involved in the Trump family and Homeland Security team brought before the Hague for crimes against humanity- I know it will never happen.