Sharon Stone has claimed that she has deceived into removing her underwear prior to that infamous scene in Basic Instinct.
The actress, now 63, detailed her treatment on and off the set of the heart-pounding 1992 thriller in her new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, of which an excerpt has been obtained and shared by Vanity Fair.
Stone claims that she was asked to remove her underwear after being told by a member of the production team: "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."
However, she recalling the moment she saw the scene for the first time, Stone writes: "After we shot Basic Instinct, I got called in to see it. Not on my own with the director, as one would anticipate, given the situation that has given us all pause, so to speak, but with 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."
Perhaps anticipating backlash for telling her point of view, Stone then recalls how there have been "many points of view on this topic", but that all the other points of view are "bulls**t".
After watching the scene unfold, Stone says she "went to the projection booth" and slapped director Paul Verhoeven across the face - and then proceeded to call her lawyer, Marty Singer.
Stone states that despite Singer insisting that the movie could not be made due to the fact that "it wasn’t legal to shoot up [Stone's] dress in this fashion", she allowed the movie to go ahead, but not before confronting Verhoeven.
She writes: "I let Paul know of the options Marty had laid out for me. Of course, he vehemently denied that I had any choices at all. I was just an actress, just a woman; what choices could I have?"
Ultimately, the scene remained in the movie, as the actress explains: "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."
Expanding on the predatory behavior she experienced on-set, Stone claims that one of the directors would repeatedly demand that she sat on his lap while he gave her directions.
Then, Stone goes on to claim that another producer encouraged her to "f**k" her co-star in an effort to obtain "onscreen chemistry".
Sadly, this wasn't a one-off experience, as Stone writes: "I’ve had other producers on other films just come to my trailer and ask, 'So, are you going to f**k him, or aren’t you? … You know it would go better if you did.'"
However, during a 2017 interview with ICON, Paul Verhoeven denied Stone's claims about the scene, saying: "Sharon is lying. Any actress knows what she’s going to see if you ask her to take off her underwear and point there with the camera."
