Basic Instinct director refutes Sharon Stone’s claims about infamous nude scene

It’s one of the most shocking nude scenes in modern cinema - and almost 30 years on, its star and director are at loggerheads once more.

Director Paul Verhoeven has finally addressed Sharon Stone’s claim that she was tricked into removing her underwear for the infamous scene in 1992’s Basic Instinct.

The now-63-year-old actress wrote in her recent memoir that she was under the impression that no frontal nudity of her would appear in the film’s final cut. Verhoeven, however, finds this inconceivable.

Stone has claimed she didn’t know this infamous scene would be so revealing. Picture: Carolco Pictures Inc./ZUMA Press.

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“She knew exactly what we were doing,” the 82-year-old Dutch director told Variety in an interview Wednesday.

“I told her it was based on a story of a woman that I knew when I was a student who did the crossing of her legs without panties regularly at parties. When my friend told her we could see her vagina, she said, ‘Of course, that’s why I do it.’ Then Sharon and I decided to do a similar sequence.”

New debate is raging about the scene, almost 30 years on.

Stone recounted in her March memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, that she was told something else on set.

“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,” she wrote in her book. But that is simply not what happened, Verhoeven claimed.

“My memory is radically different from Sharon’s memory,” he told Variety. “Her version is impossible.”

Stone kisses Michael Douglas in a scene from the steamy 1992 thriller. Picture: Getty

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The Showgirls director was careful to emphasise that, while he and Stone may disagree on the notorious scene, he respects her performance in the film and they remain on good terms.

“We still have a pleasant relationship and exchange text messages,” he said, noting that the panty discrepancy does not colour how he perceives her acting ability.

“(It) does not stand in the way and has nothing to do with the wonderful way that she portrayed Catherine Tramell,” he said of Stone’s character in Basic Instinct.

Director Paul Verhoeven now refutes Stone’s version of events. Picture: EPA

Meanwhile, Stone, who has been linked to 25-year-old rapper RMR, seems to be taking the nude-scene drama in stride, posting a pantsless photo of herself sporting only a T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon of her Basic Instinct character in June.

In addition to addressing Stone’s recent writing on the topic, Verhoeven also spoke about cinemas’ “general shift towards Puritanism,” an upcoming movie he’s working on that’s “based on my book about Jesus” and another that’s a spy thriller set in Washington.

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission.