Sharon Stone Felt Turning 60 Was Her Greatest Achievement
Actor Sharon Stone has come a long way from locking herself in a bathroom because she didn’t want to age. Nowadays, the Casino star embraces the process of aging. So much so that she’s found living to be 60-years-old to be one of her biggest accomplishments.
Why Sharon Stone was surprised by turning 60
Stone seems to be enjoying her 60s as much as she’s enjoyed her 40s and 50s. Whereas some might dread the idea of entering their sixth decade, Stone couldn’t have been any more grateful. The Basic Instinct star evaded death quite a few times, so she once doubted she’d even live this long.
“I never guessed I’d be happy turning 60. Let’s be real, it’s old. But it’s the greatest achievement for me because there was a time I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to 50,” she once told AP. “I had a brain bleed and stroke which lasted nine days. They gave me a 5 percent chance of survival. It wasn’t diet or lifestyle. Sometimes the brain malfunctions and mine malfunctioned in a big way.”
Now in her mid-60s, Stone is still enjoying old age. She’s recently shown that she’s even still able to shine on the red carpet in her more mature years. Judging by the comments she made in her interview with The Times, the actor has only found even more reasons to appreciate getting older.
“A lot of people give up as they get older. They let go of their body because it’s collapsing anyway, or it’s like, ‘I’m not defined by my body any more.’ But you still have to love that body. I joke that my underarms have pleats now. I think, ‘Well, I had beautiful arms and now they’re strong and painting [she is an artist] and like angel wings. So what if they have pleats? Maybe that’s what makes them wonderful now,’” she said.
“I was once at Jackie Collins’s house playing billiards with her and her sister, Joan, and Joan said: ‘Let me give you a tip. After 40, never get on top and never wave goodbye,’” she added. “Joan once described a man to me as a “bungalow — everything downstairs, nothing upstairs”. She’s so funny.”
Sharon Stone feels sorry for others who don’t like aging
Stone knows what it’s like to reject the natural process of aging. She had a crisis in her 40s, and had to come to terms with the changes her body was going through. There was even a time when plastic surgeons tried convincing her to go under the knife to look younger. But accepting her middle-aged years might’ve worked much better than surgery for Stone.
“My 40s were so beautiful,” Stone said in a resurfaced interview with Allure. “I couldn’t work because women, once they got to be 40, were not given jobs in Hollywood. I was a mom with three beautiful little boys. I was recovering from a massive brain injury, and I was in custody court constantly over my oldest child. But there was something wonderful in that period of all those challenges. And even though no one wanted to date me — no one would want a woman that had little children — it was a period of reconciliation and change, and understanding myself. It was my period of the biggest change, but the period where I thought I was the most beautiful.”
Her experiences are why she had little to no sympathy for others who hated the idea of growing old.
“I like being alive and healthy. And I think that we should all be super-thrilled to make it. Because I’ve witnessed any number of people not making it. I think that people who are embarrassed about being older are just stupid and ungrateful,” she told The Times.
