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Sharon Stone has a side career as a songwriter, did you know that? I am only hearing about it now, but apparently she’s written songs for Diana Krall, Hayley Sales and a German band called Schiller. Sharon was on The Late Late Show where she mentioned that while promoting her biography, The Beauty of Living Twice. She also talked about her stroke in 2001 and how it was touch and go for her for a while. It was so bad that she had a near death experience, complete with a tunnel of light and seeing her loved ones who had passed over. That wasn’t the scariest time for her either. When Sharon recovered from that she was moved to another hospital for treatment, where they almost missed the fact that she had a brain bleed. They thought she was faking her symptoms and they would have sent her home if her friend hadn’t advocated for her. Here’s more, via People, and that interview is below.
Stone said that the doctor then told her that she was bleeding into her brain, before informing her that they would be moving her to a neurological hospital as the facility she was already at did not have what they needed to treat [her].
“So they put me on this gurney that they were going to be able to move so that the ambulance could take me elsewhere,” Stone told Corden. “And once I got on that gurney, all of a sudden, that was it and I was just gone. I felt myself kind of do this sweep upwards and there was this just, like, tunnel of light.”
Stone went on to note that at the top of the tunnel was a hole where “several people that I had been very close to or had been their caretakers until they died were kind of looking down” at her.
“I felt like they were kind of telling me, ‘This is all great. This is all fine. This is going to be wonderful.’ And I felt like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be with you guys, okay,’ ” she said. “And I was really moving quickly.”
However, Stone recalled that the moment came to an abrupt end when “something happened” that made her feel as though she had been “kicked in the chest really, really hard.” The actress said she wasn’t sure if a defibrillator had been used on her.
“And then they took me to the other hospital,” Stone added, calling the experience “very strange” and “very beautiful.”
Continuing, she added, “I went to the other hospital … a lot of different things happened — bad and good — but ultimately they gave me an angiogram, they missed my brain bleed, and then I continued to bleed into my brain for like another maybe like five or six days.”
As Stone continued to speak candidly about her experience, she said that the doctors thought she was “faking it.”
“I guess Because they must think I’m a really fabulous actress,” she joked. “But eventually, they were going to send me home, and I said to my best friend, you know, ‘I’m dying.’ And she just went out and just threw a fit and said you cannot send her home, nobody sleeps 20 hours a day. She’s going in and out of a coma.”
“So they gave me another angiogram and they realized that my vertebral artery had completely ruptured and I had been bleeding into my brain all this time,” she continued, after which she underwent a “seven-hour surgery.”
Sharon’s story was so compelling and reminded me of man who spoke at a death and dying course I took in college. He had a near death experience after being trapped under his car while repairing it. He said he relived key moments of his life, but as if he was in the perspective of both himself and everyone else in the scene. He traveled toward the light and saw his loved ones who had died, similar to Sharon’s story. Whatever happens when we die it sounds comforting, like it’s nothing to fear.
After going through that harrowing experience, Sharon spent two years learning to walk and talk again. She’s been through so much I can’t imagine. Sharon is lucky her friend advocated for her at the hospital. Things could have turned out so differently for her.
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My MIL was having surgery 7 years ago and thinks she had a near-death experience. While under, she remembers climbing a ladder up toward a bright light. She had a seizure while under anesthesia, they brought her back and rescheduled the surgery for another day.
Omg what a harrowing yet amazing and magical story all at once! How did the doctors not realize she was bleeding in her brain for a week?? I wonder if she was afraid during that time or maybe comforted thinking if she died, at least her loved ones were waiting for her there on the other side? Maybe it was a gift from the other side to let her know she wasn’t alone as her recovery ordeal would be really hard.
I don’t really know what my beliefs are around death but I watched the Surviving Death docuseries on Netflix. Some of the episodes are pretty hokey (all the medium stuff) but there’s an entire episode on Near Death Experiences, which was probably one of the strongest episodes in the series. I recommend watching at least that episode (skip all the medium ones for your sanity).
It’s interesting that Sharon says a friend advocated for her and insisted that the doctors examine her more closely, because she was married to Phil Bronstein at the time. Where was he during all this? The stroke happened in 2001, and they divorced in 2004.
Phil Bronstein was being a jerk. I read that after Sharon returned home, having to re-learn to do the most basic things like walking or feeding herself, Phil left her. He married his girlfriend and sued her for custody of their son.
Sharon was too sick to even go to court. Once she recovered, she sued and got her son back and adopted two other boys.
Funny – just a couple of weeks ago my friend lent me her copy of a NDE called The Message by Lance someone (richardson? Can’t remember), but anyway, I thought it was profoundly comforting. I’ve never been afraid of death (either we cease to exist so I won’t be bothered, or there’s something else to learn and discover), but I thought his vision of the afterlife was so beautiful!
Here for anything Sharon Stone!
Wow, what a wild experience! I’m glad she’s doing well now.
It’s so scary when medical professionals are dismissive.
I know someone who died and was brought back to life. He spoke of walking down a path towards an incredibly wonderful bright light. There were other people walking, too, but they told him he couldn’t go with them because it wasn’t his time. They shuffled past him until they were so far away he couldn’t catch up.
[*The light is a common theme.*]