Sharon Stone opens up about ‘Basic Instinct’ crotch shot in memoir

In her new memoir, Sharon Stone reveals the horrific way she was shown that crotch shot from Basic Instinct for the first time.

The 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct turned Sharon Stone into a star – but it nearly crushed her spirit in the process.

In an excerpt from the 63-year-old’s forthcoming memoir, The Beauty Of Living Twice, Stone has opened up about the infamous crotch shot scene in the film, which she’d been led to believe was far less revealing than it was.

Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Picture: Supplied

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“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, so to speak, but with a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project,” reads the excerpt, published in Vanity Fair. “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.’”

While Stone cedes there are “many points of view on this topic” she asserts that, as the “one with the vagina,” hers is the only one which matters and “the other points of view are bulls**t”.

Sharon Stone on February 9, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. Picture: Getty Images

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Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven has previously said Stone is “lying” and claimed that she was fully aware of how the shot would look.

“Sharon is lying,” Verhoeven, 82, told ICON in 2017. “Any actress knows what she’s going to see if you ask her to take off her underwear and point there with the camera.”

And ultimately, after consulting with her lawyer, Stone did choose to allow the scene in the film. “Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it,” she wrote.

Sharon Stone in 2006’s Basic Instinct 2. Picture: Supplied

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Basic Instinct wasn’t the only distressing situation she’s had to endure in her film career. For another movie, Stone claimed a producer tried to convince her to “f**k my co-star so that we could have on-screen chemistry”.

Standing up for herself in such situations gave her a reputation as “difficult”.

“Many people ask me what it was like in my days of being a superstar,” she goes on. “It was like this. Play ball or get off the field, girl.”

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission