Sharon Stone: I'm 'Reclaiming My Life'

Sharon Stone is stripping things back in her 60s, starting with her medicine cabinet and her weed stash. The 68-year-old actor tells Variety she decided last fall to stop taking a stroke medication she'd been on since nearly dying from a brain hemorrhage in 2001—despite doctors warning she should never quit it. Coming off the drug was "like going off ... heroin," she says, describing four and a half miserable months that left her determined to live drug-free. Next to go was marijuana, which she says also made her ill for a month when she took that out of the loop. "It's not like when we were kids," she says, adding that her neurologist claims he's seen people die in the ER from pot.

With the meds and marijuana gone, Stone says she's in a phase of "reclaiming my life," channeling her energy into painting, modeling, and plotting a stage career. Her pandemic-era art binge—so intense her sons begged her to at least put on a bra—has evolved into gallery shows worldwide. She recently returned to the runway in Paris after three decades and is now pitching Broadway ideas, including a punk-era reimagining of Mame and a lesbian spin on La Cage Aux Folles. People hear her concepts and ask what she's on, she jokes—but, she notes, these days the answer is: almost nothing.