Movies can have a profound effect on those who act in them, but sometimes, it can have a devastating consequence - like what Sharon Stone experienced after her Basic Instinct famous leg cross scene.
The 1992 crime thriller starred Stone as the mysterious Catherine Tramell, a crime novelist, who becomes a suspect when she is linked to the death of a rock star.
The case, which is investigated by detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), turns into an intense game of cat-and-mouse romance for the pair, while murders keep cropping up around them.
The film propelled Stone into stardom after having previously found fame in Total Recall.
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However, one moment in the film would prove to break her too.
Known as the most paused moment in television history, Stone’s character has one particularly interesting scene in an interrogation room with Douglas.
Whilst being interviewed about her role in the crimes, Tramell attempts to seduce the detectives around her, namely, by crossing her legs, whilst wearing a short white dress and no underwear.
Shockingly, you can actually see Stone’s genitalia in the clip for a fraction of a second, which caused quite the stir at the time of its release.
Of course, Stone had some say in whether it was included in the flick, but she says it happened in an upsetting way and came back to bite her a decade later.
She has since said she didn’t know the scene would show her vulva. In a 2023 interview on the Table for Two podcast, she claimed that the judge was prejudiced against her during her 2004 divorce case.
She claimed he asked her then four-year-old son if he was aware of her making ‘sex movies’.
“I lost custody of my child,” Stone told host Bruce Bozzi. “The judge asked my child, my tiny little boy, ‘Do you know your mother makes sex movies?’”
Stone, 67, said the scene was ‘weaponised against her’ as she divorced ex-husband Ron Bronstein, who had filed for divorce in 2003.
It culminated in her losing custody of son Roan, whom the couple adopted in 2000.
She went on to say that it led to her cardiac issues due to the heartbreak.
“People are walking around with no clothes on at all on regular TV now and you saw maybe like a 16th of a second of possible nudity of me - and I lost custody of my child,” she said. “Are you kidding?”
She added: “It broke my heart. It literally broke my heart.”
Previously, she had also described the moment she realised her vulva would be seen on camera by those watching the flick.
The actress revealed all in her 2021 memoir The Beauty of Living Twice, where she wrote of the moment she ‘slapped’ director Paul Verhoeven.
She wrote: “After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it. Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause… but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project.
"That was how I saw my vagina-shot for the first time, long after I'd been told, 'We can’t see anything - I just need you to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light, so we know you have panties on.’”
Claiming that ‘since I'm the one with the vagina in question’ that ‘the other points of view are b*******’, she shared that she immediately called her lawyer after the viewing, but ultimately allowed it to stay in the flick as she believes it lined up with what the character would do.
Topics: TV And Film, Celebrity, Parenting
Britt Jones