Celebrity4 min(s) read
Michael Douglas names actress who was his 'secret lover' before marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones
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Michael Douglas has admitted in his new memoir that he and Kathleen Turner were secret lovers during the filming of Romancing the Stone in 1984, confirming what people have suspected for 40 years and what both of them had flatly denied every time they were asked.
"That was a lie," he writes.
The official story they told for four decades
Whenever anyone asked about their chemistry, they had a rehearsed answer.
They were both 'terrible flirts'.
They were both 'tempted'. But nothing ever happened.
Turner stuck to the script as recently as a People magazine interview a few years ago, saying: "Oh I was yearning, babe, but he was still married."
In his memoir, One Helluva Ride, Douglas says the truth was the exact opposite of everything they had told the press for over four decades.
"The truth is that during the production of Romancing the Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship."
What actually happened in Mexico
Douglas was separated from his first wife Diandra at the time, though technically still married.
He was immediately attracted to Turner when they met to discuss the role.
"Kathleen was smart, funny, and sexy with a deep, sultry voice that became her signature," he writes.
"I instantly liked her, and we were immediately attracted to each other."
Once filming began in Mexico, they would go out to dinner together and then sneak into each other's hotel rooms after the rest of the cast and crew had gone to sleep.
Their co-star Danny DeVito and director Robert Zemeckis had 'no clue' about what was going on.
That ended when Diandra flew out to visit the set with their young son Cameron.
She confronted Turner directly and reminded her that she and Douglas were still married.
Turner did not want to be the reason a marriage ended, so they broke it off.
"After that visit, Kathleen and I ended things, and I went back to Diandra," Douglas writes.
"After that first split it was never the same between us ever again."
What happened afterwards
They kept working together.
They made The Jewel of the Nile in 1985, The War of the Roses in 1989, and reunited on the television series The Kominsky Method in 2021.
By all accounts, they repaired the friendship and have remained close.
Close enough, in fact, that Douglas asked Turner's permission before including the affair in his memoir. She agreed.
Douglas went on to meet Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1998.
They married in 2000 and have been together since.
The marriage survived his throat cancer diagnosis in 2010, which led to one of the most uncomfortable press cycles of his career after he publicly linked the cancer to oral sex.
He later apologised to Zeta-Jones for the comment.
Why he is telling the truth now
Douglas is 82 and has nothing left to protect or regret.
His marriage to Zeta-Jones is firmly established, his first wife Diandra - who he says suspected the affair at the time - has been out of the picture for decades.
Turner, now 72, gave her blessing.
The memoir appears to be a clearing of the decks.
After four decades of both of them looking journalists in the eye and saying nothing happened, Douglas has decided to simply say that it did.
The line that captures it best is the one he uses to transition from the official version to the real one.
"Yes, we were both tempted, but nothing ever happened between us.
Then, on the next line: "That was a lie."
Forty years of interviews, press junkets, and magazine profiles, all built on a single agreed-upon fiction about two people sneaking into each other's hotel rooms in Mexico while Danny DeVito slept down the hall unaware.