For Sharon Stone, death did become her.
“I feel that I did die,” the actress said in a cover story published by Closer, after suffering from a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage in 2001. “This kind of giant vortex of light was upon me and — poof! I sort of took off into this glorious, white light.”
While living in San Francisco with then-husband Phil Bronstein 15 years ago, Stone, 58, believed the hemorrhage was actually a stroke. Though she waited three days before going to the hospital, Stone revealed she reunited with friends from beyond the grave as she entered an unworldly vortex.
“I started to see and be met by some of my friends … people who were very, very dear to me [who had died]. I had a real journey with this that took me to places both here and beyond,” Stone shared.
“But it was very fast — whoosh! Suddenly, I was back. I was back in my body,” she continued.
Stone has since recovered, having spent two years learning to walk and talk again. Despite her early brush with death, the “Basic Instinct” beauty no longer lives in fear of dying.
“I get not to be afraid of dying and I get to tell other people that it’s a fabulous thing and death is a gift,” she said. “When death becomes you, as it will, it’s a glorious beautiful thing. I had an incredible sense of well-being and a sense that it’s just so near. Death — it’s very near and very safe. It’s not a far away or scary thing.”