Sharon Stone writes in her upcoming memoir that she did not consent to filming an upskirt scene in the 1992 film Basic Instinct. The Oscar nominee, 63, writes in The Beauty of Living Twice that a member of the film’s production crew told her to take off her underwear during the infamous interrogation scene, in which she uncrosses her legs, and promised that her privates would not be shown onscreen. As viewers know, that was not the case.
Sharon didn’t know until she saw the final cut of the movie in “a room full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing to do with the project… 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,” according to an excerpt of her book obtained by Vanity Fair.
After finding out the truth, the Casino star says that she “slapped” director Paul Verhoeven and called her lawyer, Marty Singer. The attorney reportedly told Paul that the scene needed to be cut because it was illegal to shoot up Sharon’s skirt. But the actress ultimately decided to agree to keeping it in the movie after pushback from the director, who allegedly said she “didn’t have a choice.”
“I was just an actress, just a woman; what choices could I have?” she said. “But I did have choices. So I thought and thought and I chose to allow this scene in the film. Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it.” She added that she’s proud of the film, though, and how the role “stretched” her as an actress.
“For the first time, I was asking to learn how to know something new. I was asking for the world to change. I was asking for permission to say why,” Sharon writes. “Do you have any idea how many people have watched Basic Instinct in the last 20-something years? Think about it. It’s about more than just a peek up my skirt, people.”
Regardless of how people feel about the Basic Instinct scene, Sharon makes it clear: her perspective is the only one that matters: “Yes, there have been many points of view on this topic, but since I’m the one with the vagina, in question, let me say: The other points of view are bullsh*t… It was me and my parts up there.”