Sharon Stone’s first time hosting “Saturday Night Live” left her “terrified.”
During an appearance on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s “Fly On The Wall” podcast, the actress opened up about her time hosting the show in the early 1990s and explained how executive producer Lorne Michaels “saved” her life during her opening monologue.
In 1992, shortly after the release of “Basic Instinct,” Stone recalled protesters “storming” the stage as she began her live opening for the comedy sketch show.
“I came out to do the monologue live, which is super scary, and a bunch of people started storming the stage saying they were going to kill me during the opening monologue,” Stone said. “The security that was in there froze because they never had seen anything like that happen. Lorne started screaming at [security], ‘What are you doing? Watching the f—ing show?’ And Lorne started beating them up and pulling them back from the stage. The stage manager looked at me and said, ‘Hold for five.’ So all these people were getting beat up and handcuffed in front of me as we went live.”
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Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone starred in the 1992 film “Basic Instinct.” (TriStar/courtesy Everett Collection)
“If you think the monologue is scary to begin with, try doing it as people are getting handcuffed in front of you,” Stone added.
Stone, who had just begun her work as an AIDS activist, said the protesters were “mad” at her efforts.
“No one understood at the time what was happening, and they didn’t know if amfAR could be trusted or if we were against gay people,” she said. “Instead of waiting for an intelligent, informative conversation they thought, ‘Oh let’s just kill her.'”
According to the Los Angeles Times, six people were arrested that night.
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“We are protesting Hollywood’s homophobia and misogyny as exemplified in the film,” James Wagner, a spokesman for the group of protesters, told the outlet at the time.
While the show went on, Stone admitted she was “terrified.”
Sharon Stone said people were threatening to kill her during her opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live.” (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb )
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“I was so not prepared,” Stone added. “As you remember, the audience wasn’t up like it is now. Every time we were making a change, you’re really physically changing your clothes while you’re running through the audience. I was just terrified. I honestly blacked out for half of the show.”
Stone rose to fame in the 1990s with breakthrough roles in “Basic Instinct” and “Casino.” However, her career pivoted from acting to activism after she suffered a stroke in 2001.
“I had a 1% chance of survival. I had a nine-day brain bleed. I recovered for seven years and I haven’t had jobs since,” she said during the “Raising Our Voices” luncheon in June 2023. “My contract changed. I have a maximum of a 14-hour day. When it first happened, I didn’t want to tell anybody because, you know, if something goes wrong with you, you’re out. Something went wrong with me: I’ve been out for 20 years,” she declared.
Sharon Stone spoke about how her stroke in 2001 hindered her acting career. (Michael Kovac/The Hollywood Reporter)
“I haven’t had jobs. I was a very big movie star at one point in my life. I broke a lot of glass ceilings with the top of my head,” she admitted.
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“I would have loved to be heard, but since I wasn’t, I decided to work so that you could be heard,” she continued. “I have spent the last 20 years plus working for the World Health Organization, working for the United Nations, working for governments all over the world. So that you can be heard. It is important to me that your diversity does not get wiped out by this anti-woke bulls— idea in our country.”
