Sharon Stone was interviewed by Lee Cowan for CBS Sunday Morning this week and offered one of the most cathartic responses about harassment and assault in Hollywood.
In light of the conversation happening around women’s experiences in the industry, Stone was asked if she’s ever been put in an “uncomfortable” position as an actress. Stone burst out laughing, then continued: “I’ve been in this business 40 years, Lee. Can you imagine the business I stepped into 40 years ago?”
On @CBSSunday, @sharonstone was asked if she's ever faced any sort of harassment/assault while she's been in the entertainment business.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 14, 2018
This was her reaction….. pic.twitter.com/WdCXVvgxfK
Her laugh is obviously not a nervous laugh, as Cowan inquires. It’s the laugh of a woman who stepped into an industry that was even more toxic than it is now, without “any protection,” as she says, and no doubt had to push through traumatic experiences.
Before her good laugh, she had this to say: “We were raised to accommodate men, especially in my generation. And women so often lose their own identity to the identity of the men that they’re with… We’re starting to acknowledge our own gifts as women and not think that we need to behave as men in order to be empowered or powerful or valuable.”
Stone holds her own in the awkward interview with Cowan, who gets a few more clueless-guy remarks in. Reflecting back on her character in Basic Instinct, Stone says it wasn’t about sex: “That character is a sociopath.”
“But a very sexy sociopath,” Cowan remarks, not exactly reading the room.
H/T Elle