The role that cost Sharon Stone custody of her son

That's the question Sharon Stone remembered a judge asking her four-year-old son during a custody battle with her ex-husband Ron Bronstein in 2004.

While playing Catherine Tramell in 'Basic Instinct' was one of Sharon Stone's best roles, it would end up defining not only her career but also her personal life for many years to come.

It was in 1992 when the Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven chose Sharon Stone, who had her major breakthrough in his 1990 movie 'Total Recall,' to take the lead role in the erotic thriller.

The film was a massive success, turning a budget of $49 million into box office earnings of $353 million. However, its popularity also made it a lightning rod for controversy.

'Basic Instinct' was criticized by people from all walks of life. The LGTBQ + community wasn't happy because the protagonist was a bisexual psychopath. Meanwhile, conservatives called it an "adult film" and slammed it for being extremely violent.

But the worst consequence came for Sharon Stone, who lost custody of her son 12 years after the film came out, in part due to the infamous scene where she uncrossed her legs.

Speaking on the 'Table for Two' podcast, Stone explained all the bad things that came her way because she starred in the film.

Sharon Stone married Phil Bronstein, executive editor of 'The San Francisco Examiner' in 1998. Two years later, they adopted Roan Joseph Bronstein, and in 2003, Joseph Bronstein filed for divorce from the actress, citing irreconcilable differences.

Forget a prenup, in an interview with the New York Times, Stone discussed how she had to sign a confidentiality agreement with Bronstein. When asked whether that's unusual, she told the journalist: "If you want to know anything on that subject, I’m sure you can find that out all by yourself."

Sharon Stone accused the court of crossing a line. "When the judge asked my child — my tiny little tiny boy — 'Do you know your mother makes se... movies?,' like, this kind of abuse by the system, this kind of abuse that I was considered what kind of parent I was because I made that movie," she said on the podcast.

When looking back, she remarked on how different n u d i t y is viewed on screen today. "People are walking around with no clothes on at all on regular TV now. And you saw maybe like a sixteenth of a second of possible n u d i t y of me," she said.

She said the judge's decision literally broke her heart. "I ended up in the Mayo Clinic with extra heartbeats in my upper and lower chamber of my heart," she explained.

On top of the eventual custody implications, she explained how her peers in Hollywood looked down upon her after the film. "I got nominated for a Golden Globe for that part, and when I went to the Golden Globes and they called my name, a bunch of people in the room laughed," she said.

"I was so humiliated. And I was like, does anybody have any idea how hard it was to play that part? How gut-wrenching? How frightening?" Stone continued, adding that after 'Basic Instinct' she avoids playing dark characters who are sexualized.

Besides coping with playing this complex, groundbreaking role that everyone was protesting, she said she also spent nine months auditioning. "I just wanted to crawl into a hole," she added.

And worst of all, Stone says she didn't even agree to showing everything as she uncrossed her legs during the famous interrogation scene.

In her 2022 memoir 'The Beauty of Living Twice,' she said she was tricked into the full frontal and didn't realize what the audience was going to see until a screening.

She said that she was told to take off her panties during the interrogation scene because they were "reflecting the light," but was assured that no one could see "anything."

Image: 'Basic Instinct' via Youtube/ StudiocanalUK

“It was me and my parts up there. I had decisions to make. I went to the projection booth, slapped [director] Paul [Verhoeven] across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer," she wrote, describing her reaction to seeing that she had accidentally done full frontal.

The filmmaker and director has repeatedly denied her claims. "She knew exactly what we were doing," Verhoeven told Variety in 2022.

In an interview promoting her memoir with the New York Times, Stone also said she and her sister were both abused as children by their grandfather.

Despite the controversy around 'Basic Instinct, ' her career continued to flourish. She also got Golden Globe nods for her performances in 'Casino' (1995), 'The Mighty' (1998) and 'The Muse' (1999). After she took a hiatus for health in 2001, she said she struggled to get back on track, although she's appeared in several movies since.

After she took a hiatus for health in 2001, she said she felt like she had lost her place in Hollywood. She did make a comeback, starring in several films and TV shows, including 'Basic Instinct 2' in 2006.

Sharon has three adopted sons total: Roan, 22, Laird, 17, and Quinn, 16. In a column for British Vogue, she wrote: ​​"I'm now a single mother with three adopted sons, and it has been the great privilege of my life to raise them."

Photo: Sharonstone/Instagram

Stone was also in tears as she announced the death of her brother in Feb. 2023. He died of a heart attack. He was the father of her nephew River, who died in 2022 at eleven months old. "We've had a tremendous amount of loss in the last couple of years," she said.

Speaking in March 2023 at a Women's Cancer Research Fund event, she told the crowd: "I just lost half my money to this banking thing, and that doesn’t mean that I’m not here," presumably referring to the collapse of regional banks in the United States.